Duke Women in Solidarity

I read on www.espn.com that Duke’s women’s lacrosse team plans to start wearing sweatbands with “innocent” on them, a sign of support for the school’s men’s team.

"We want to win a national championship for ourselves but definitely also for the university and the men's team," junior Leigh Jester told the newspaper. "They don't really have a chance to play their season, which is a shame."

If for some reason you haven’t heard, the men’s season was cancelled after a stripper at a team party complained she was sexually assaulted. Since then three members of the team have been charged with sexual assault.

Personally, I think the sweatbands are a dumb idea. For one, the women wearing them don’t know anything more about the facts than anyone else. This is—at most—wishful thinking. The only people who know what happened for sure are the stripper and men at the party who invited her. But it does prove one thing: there’s solidarity in membership.

I guess I’m surprised that women, at a top college, who I assume hope to be taken seriously and treated as equals either as athletes or career professionals, would go out of their way to support men who—at best—hired an exotic dancer to perform for them at one of their team parties. Doesn’t this act—at best—degrade women in general? Life, if not college, should teach you that some things are more imporant than team spirit.

The full article can be found here.