Outrage over chant glorifying underage, non-consensual sex
Posted September 5, 2013 6:44 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
HALIFAX, NS (NEWS1130) – A university in Halifax is condemning a frosh-week chant by students that condones having non-consensual sex with underage girls.
It was a 15-second video posted to Instagram Monday which brought the chant to light; it shows a crowded football field of Saint Mary’s University students, with frosh week leaders chanting “Y is for your sister, U is for underage, N is for no consent, Saint Mary’s boys we like them young.”
Other parts of the chant are too offensive to include.
Lewis Rendell, secretary of the board of directors at the university’s women’s centre, couldn’t believe it. “It’s sudden and it’s very frightening and very frustrating; not just as somebody who works and studies at the university but as a young woman as well.”
She tells our sister station News 95.7 in Halifax that it’s not just a university issue.
“It is a societal issue, this isn’t just the sort of thing you see on Saint Mary’s campus, it’s pretty widespread, it’s across the board,” says Rendell.
Steve Proctor with the university says senior administrators were “shocked.” when they saw the video of the chant.
“The senior director of student services had met with the executive and the organizing committee and the organization camp and spoke about these very issues and the need to be respectful.”
The chant has apparently been used for years.
“This chant was a little more sexually charged than previous version of the chants,” explains Proctor “I can’t speak to the exact heritage of the chant, but it’s certainly the last year that the chant will be sung.”
The university has ordered all 80 frosh week leaders and the entire SMU student unions executive to sensitivity training, but Rendell wants to know more about that training.
“I’d personally really like to know who’s administering that training, whether it’s leaders at St. F-X or a community group like the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre,” she says.
The student union has apologized and promises the chant will no longer be part of frosh week activities.
