As a freshman at Syracuse University and potentially other schools, you may hear the term “fresh meat” thrown around to describe people who are new to the institution. But rather than being a term to describe the quality of meat at the grocery store, it’s being used to describe you and your “quality” as a person.

The term is most commonly used to describe freshman women. It implies women’s sexual vulnerability, and it suggests that women are easy prey — they are fresh, new and untouched.

The term “fresh meat” itself is problematic and vulgar. It compares women to items on the shelves of a grocery store, arbitrarily ranking their sexual appeal.

Kim Walsh-Childers, a journalism professor at the University of Florida is an expert in media effects on teen sexual attitudes, teen sexual behavior, mass media and media effects, and said that the idea behind the term imposes damaging mental implications for women.

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“It forces women to be more cautious about trusting any other men they might encounter and can interfere with the development of relationships with men who would be trustworthy friends,” she said. “On the other hand, women who aren’t sufficiently cautious face very serious risks of being sexually assaulted, which can have catastrophic consequences for them physically, mentally and academically.”

The mindset of thinking that an individual is “fresh meat” is obviously not shared by everyone. But it’s important to call out those at the root of the problem.

“The fault lies entirely with the men who view women this way and with systems that aren’t set up to protect the women,” said Walsh-Childers.

With allegations against celebrities like Harvey Weinstein and R. Kelly, and movements like #MeToo, these cases show how allegations of rape and sexual assault often go unheard and become normalized rather than seen as an immediate issue. These same attitudes persist on college campuses nationwide.

In the start of the 2015 fall semester, a fraternity house at Old Dominion University in Virginia hung signs over their house reading “Freshman Daughter Drop Off” and “Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time.” After circulation of the pictures surfaced on social media, the fraternity was placed under investigation and the University’s President released a statement condemning the signs.

While the term “fresh meat” is often laughed over, and seen as a joke, the danger behind the mindset of the term is very real. Students have to stand up to jokes about incoming students because they never are harmless. It represents a degrading worldview that prioritizes sexual domination over human value, and that must be stopped.

Jewél Jackson is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at jjacks17@syr.edu.

Published on September 3, 2019 at 10:28 pm