Lefkowitz’s Views on Patriarchal Societies

Male Privilege

When the story of the Glen Ridge Rape hit the news on May 23, 1989, people around the country, and especially in the small, northern New Jersey town of Glen Ridge, were shocked to hear that these boys were capable of such an atrocious act. Indeed, many wanted to immediately deny the accusations and blame the victim instead, inciting sexual terrorism on an innocent 17-year-old female with a mental disability. In Bernard Lefkowitz’s book, Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb, the author introduces his reasons for choosing to write about the case and poses his initial question to the crime: why? The question of why these boys would participate in the rape and degradation of a mentally retarded girl as some kind of after school fun is deeply troubling. A quest to answer the question of why in Lefkowitz’s book does not provide one, clear-cut answer; instead, we learn through detailed accounts of the 13 boys’ lives and lifestyles that the heavily patriarchal, male-privileged, athlete-centered subculture in the affluent town of Glen Ridge was a key player in encouraging and allowing for this atrocity to occur. No serious accountability for any previous indiscretions had ever been held against these boys who were treated as the ruling elite of Glen Ridge in the eyes of nearly everyone, including the victim.

Lefkowitz likens Glen Ridge in the 1980s to suburban America in the 1960s. What he means by this is that life is centered around an ideal image of the family, where the father is the patriarch and the mother a more submissive, caretaker or housewife. Essentially, life in Glen Ridge was conservative and seemingly frozen in time. Sons were valued more than daughters and held to different standards. As long as the boys of Glen Ridge Rape did well on the football field, they were excused for poor grades (the only repercussion ever suggested was over grades, but this was often appealed), misconduct, under-age drinking, and any other “they’re just being boys” behavior. Girls seemed to exist solely for the boys' pleasure and were endlessly abused by them, even those the jocks considered their friends. Even girls like the victim, a defenseless, mentally retarded girl many of the boys present at the scene of the crime had known since childhood.

Upon review of the upbringing of the boys, Lefkowitz gives us a haunting portrayal of idealization within the community that liked its streets clean and scandal brushed under the carpet. The cookie-cutter image of life for these families was upheld by the male-dominated ideology in which wives, mothers, girlfriends, and even sisters weren’t inherently valuable except for their commitment to upholding the patriarchal standards. It is interesting to note, as Lefkowitz does, that of all the boys involved, only one of them actually had a sister. Lack of respect for women is pervasive in the book about the crime and the boys’ treatment of girls, even while at school, was largely undocumented by the administration. Females interviewed about the case express extreme sexism by of their male counterparts, many accounts of which teachers and coaches seemed to turn a blind eye towards.

Involvement in town athletics was the only way to ensure a place in the social network of the Glen Ridge elite, which included the Glen Ridge Rape boys’ families. Having a son as a star athlete in Glen Ridge secured the family name, and therefore the boys were commodities because of their athletic builds, as girls were for their perceived ability to please the males in this highly male-dominant society. It is not a stretch to say that the boys of these families were idolized and aggrandized for their masculinity. Femininity, on the other hand, was something to be scoffed at. Masculinity and simply being of the male gender allowed these boys to get away with nearly anything, as long as they upheld the appearances expected of them. And often what was expected of them was bad behavior, conveniently attributed to and excused by their gender. Everything from Kevin’s habit of indecent exposure at school to Chris’ icy treatment of girls and destruction of Mary’s house to the underage alcohol bust at the supermarket where Richie Corcoran Jr. worked the register were not punishable events, but laughable ones that would be written about in their high school yearbooks, as Lefkowitz recounts. The boys were not only excused for their behavior based on their gender, but their antics were also encouraged and celebrated as a kind of gross spectacle. The boys received 10 days out of school suspension for the rape--barely a slap on the wrist.

Being male offered these boys an excuse for nearly anything. Having families with money only exacerbated their complete lack of accountability for anything they destroyed, as they never were shown the example of what it means to have to earn something or take responsibility. Often boys like the twins, Kevin and Kyle, were left home alone while their parents were vacationing. In fact, their parents were away when a 17-year-old retarded girl was lured to their house and raped in the basement. Lefkowitz makes a point of noting that these boys were generally average athletes; there was nothing spectacular about their abilities. However, simply being able to put on the uniform and play the part of the young male ideal made them feel invincible and there was little action taken to suggest the contrary.

Upon comparison of Lefkowitz’s thorough investigation into the suburban society of Glen Ridge with theories of patriarchy by Allan Johnson, the original question as to why this atrocity occurred becomes more like how. As Johnson explains, patriarchal societies like that of Glen Ridge exist on a “rather not know” basis where allegations suggesting something might be defective like abuse or rape charges are instantly refuted and turned back upon the female victim. The ideology of male supremacy and privilege makes it difficult for people to accept that those they held on a pedestal of idolatry are to be held accountable for what happened that 1st day of March 1989.

The privileges accorded to the young males of Glen Ridge based solely on their gender are unfortunately not as much as an anomaly as most people would like to believe. The culture that allowed for such an incident to occur is one based on false assumptions and ideologies about male dominance and power. The destructive nature of such patriarchal cultures could not be more poignant than in the case of the Glen Ridge Rape. Not only were the boys involved brought up to believe that their actions towards women had no moral or societal repercussions, but the women of the society were also brainwashed into thinking that their antics leading up to the rape were acceptable behavior for teenage boys. The destruction caused by the Glen Ridge Rape was horrific for the development of an already developmentally challenged young woman, and yet in the wake of the initial legal proceedings, members of the community still wanted to believe that this was a tragedy for the boys, their families, and the community’s reputation. Lefkowitz mentions early on in his book that to view this as a tragedy--as something that passively happened to the boys, not to the actual victim--paints an ugly portrait of the lack of true value of character and the importance instead given to keeping up appearances.

Male Supremacy and Rigid Gender Roles

The socially constructed ideas of gender roles were pervasive in the small-town of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, where a mentally retarded teenage girl was raped by a group of her peers in 1989. The Glen Ridge Rape provides a haunting example of how perceived notions of gender can be so detrimental to both males and females, whether they adhere to these false premises or not. In the case of Glen Ridge, the entire community dynamics were based on traditional gender roles. The patriarchal-based assumptions of how both females and males should behave often excused the actions of the rowdy bunch of athletes in the past; however, in the case of the Glen Ridge Rape, the anachronistic small-town society was forced to take a closer look on their values and beliefs that would allow for such a crime to take place, and it became clear in the book, Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb, by Bernard Lefkowitz that these values and beliefs were based on the rigidity of gender roles.

Masculinity for the teen boys involved in the Glen Ridge Rape was based largely on athleticism and the male image of dominance. For females, their duty was largely as caretakers for the males who, if only by intimidation, encouraged females to take a secondary role in society and to keep their mouths shut. Being feminine, therefore, was to be submissive. While the gender roles associated with the rape make it easy to see how power was distributed among those involved, this serves as a microcosm for the larger community that taught its young people this false ideology. Parents, teachers, and even the police force in the Glen Ridge of 1989 all seemed to perpetuate the gender-based assumptions that males were privileged and females faded to the background. Interestingly enough, a young female detective, the first in the town’s history, spearheaded the case of the Glen Ridge Rape. While Detective Shelia Bryant was perhaps the perfect person for the job due to her knowledge of the area, the boys themselves, and the dynamics of the Glen Ridge sub-culture, it must be mentioned that she was largely afforded this position not just on merit, but because her boss, Richard Corcoran, was the father of one of the boys present at the scene of the crime. Based on all the facts we have about the town, the school system, and the police force with the exception of Detective Bryant, it begs the question of whether the allegations that were brought against the boys would have ever happened if she were not leading the case. Given Lefkowitz’s account, it is safe to assume that little or no effort towards convicting the rapists would have taken place without her presence on the police force and her keen insight into the evaluation of the victim who Bryant quickly realized, was not even mentally capable of understanding what had happened to her in that basement.

It took a shockingly long time for rumors of the rape to reach the police, and the sleepy, small-town police initially moved at a snail's pace to interview the boys and get the case moving, much to Bryant’s dismay. It is clear that very few people who had heard of the event, including classmates, a teacher, and the victim’s swimming coach, and even her parents were able to process that this kind of event actually took place in their idealized and affluent suburban town. The validity of the victim’s account was used to undermine the case, causing people to question first if she was telling the truth and secondly if she was capable of refusing the boys’ advances. For detective Bryant, it was established almost immediately in the interview process that not only was she telling the truth, she had no way of fully comprehending what had happened to her, as she expressed fear of getting the boys, who she wanted so desperately to like her to, in trouble at school or with the law.

Despite the victim’s knowledge that was done to her was wrong and that the boys did things to her that she had tried to resist, the fact that the patriarchal model of gender role assignment could not even spare a developmentally-challenged 17-year-old girl attests to how powerful this ideology really is. While the victim did not even possess the vocabulary to identify her female reproductive organs, she did know that the boys ruled the school and the school sports system ruled the town. The idolization of everything male had everything to do with traditional assumptions and images of boys as tough, rowdy, muscular, and athletic. The normalization of these traits for the boys of Glen Ridge was used as an excuse for their often callous behavior, particularly towards females. This included unwarranted sexual advances, fondling, verbal abuse, and even violent destruction of personal property, such as in the case of Mary’s house party where a group of teen boys completely demolished a girl’s home during a 3-day-long party simply because she was not in their clique of the popular kids. The popular group was the town royalty, which essentially included only those who played sports and were permitted to hang around the jocks because they were attractive or had something else to offer the boys. These obvious ramifications of accepted male behavior show only the physical damage, which is only the tip of the iceberg when we consider the psychological damage done to females who grew up in such an environment.

All of the families of those involved in the Glen Ridge Rape described by Lefkowitz were images of the traditional family structure and dynamic with the father as the ruling patriarch and bread-winner, the mother as the submissive housewife or secondary income earner, and their sports-playing sons hailed as idols, regardless of their poor grades or rowdy behavior. Girls were often overlooked as simply wives and mothers-in-training. The majority of the boys did not have any sisters, or at least did not have sister’s that lived with them or were close in age; this is noted by Lefkowitz not as an excuse for their lack of respect for women, but as a detail that exacerbated the importance of these boys in the eyes of their parents who acted as if their children were gods who could do no wrong and should never be questioned.

Oddly enough, at least at first glance, many of the families related to the Glen Ridge Rape case were very religious. Many of these families were practicing Christians and the boys were required to attend church services and had religious education or Bible study as a part of their upbringing. The conservative Christian dynamic in this case, was yet another perpetrator of the gender role ideology that was so pervasive and toxic in the town of Glen Ridge. The reason for the negative association of the religious affiliations of these families lies in the fact that it is the image of the conventional family and reproduction thereof that contributes to the masculine and feminine gender role assignments. The conservatism of such defined roles of husband and wife were congruous with male and female. Gender, therefore, had as much to do with the physical body as it did the system of values, which for this town went derelict. What was important was that boys acted like boys were supposed to and the girls faded into the background, going along with the system and not questioning male authority. The husband was the idealized protector of the family, strong and powerful, while the mother was a kind of delicate and fragile figure, although she was responsible for all the work that happens behind the scenes, of course.

The socially-assigned gender roles that formed the dynamics of those living in Glen Ridge in 1989 when the rape took place were as rigid as anywhere in conservative, suburban America. Ideas of masculinity and femininity not only defined social behavior but created a system of beliefs so strong it would take an outrageous crime like the rape of a mentally retarded teen for the townspeople to question their values and the way they were raising their children. As evident in Lefkowitz’s book, for some, the patriarchal ideology was so deep-rooted that they could never get past their assumptions and accept what really happened in their town or what their children were capable of. For those like the victim that didn’t fit the mold of femininity, not just because she loved to play sports, but more so because of her disability, social and self-worth was left up to the dominant males to decide. The boys who raped the young woman and those who stood by without interjecting were raised in a culture where masculinity often included this kind of gross manipulation and subjugation of women and anyone who fell powerless to their unquestioned male supremacy.

Patriarchal Myths

A complex system of myth-based ideologies of gender and power is evident in Bernard Lefkowitz’s account of the Glen Ridge Rape of 1989. These myths are born out of centuries of acceptance by society of male domination and female subjugation. Acceptance often comes not in the form of conscious decision-making, but rather as the result of a kind of brainwashing inherent in any ideology where beliefs and values are so deep-rooted that it appears to be something innate or intrinsic. In reality, the perpetuation of rape-cultures is not a natural phenomenon but one that we adhere to often because we are blind to its very existence and the ways in which it is reinforced. While those who lived in Glen Ridge at the time of the rape of a young, mentally-disabled girl wanted desperately to cling to their assumptions that their town was some kind of sacred place free of crime and essentially anything unpleasant, the events of March 1st 1989 were a horrific manifestation of the danger of these kind of cultures where rape becomes something almost normal, even if it does ruin the cookie-cutter image of a place.

Feminist discourse communities led by scholars such as Patricia Yancey Martin challenges the myths associated with this kind of ideology, which includes false premises that rape is natural, that women are partially if not wholly responsible, that rape can not be eliminated from society, and that rape is not a gender issue. An evaluation of Glen Ridge’s patriarchal, male-dominated society of strict gender roles can be used as a means for understanding how these myths are perpetuated and how detrimental this way of thinking can be. The painful truth that those in Glen Ridge had to learn is that their adherence to an ideology that essentially supports rape allowed for such an atrocity to happen under their watch. Rape is not a natural act of male sexuality that cannot be controlled. Conscious efforts to change how people think about rape, about masculinity and femininity is the best way to eliminate such horrors from happening to people of both sexes. The idea that only criminals or people that are mentally disturbed in some way are those who commit such acts of sexual violence is disproven by the Glen Ridge Rape case. The boys involved in the rape, including those who stood by and watched it happen, were members of a society that made male aggression acceptable and even normalized. Those who believed that the event was a “tragedy” for “their boys” were actually arbitrators of such an occurrence, without even realizing it.

Women’s sexuality and perception of femininity in no way justify a rape. The caveman cartoon evaluated by Timothy Beneke in Men on Rape is an apt image of the false myths and messages about rape, not solely because so many of the ways in which society views rape are perpetuated in the cartoon and the understanding of it, but because these ideas about gender once analyzed, can be likened to the mental capacity of a much more primitive species of men. Humans are highly social beings and the excuse that male sexuality coupled with the idealized masculine brute force is a cause for rape is not at all valid. In fact, the socialization of males and females of those in 1989 Glen Ridge society proves that these notions of gender roles and dominance are socially constructed and perpetuated. The idolization of the male athletes in Glen Ridge was based on socially constructed notions of value and power.

Rape-Prone societies like that of Glen Ridge at the time of the gang rape of a mentally retarded young girl ironically defies gender roles. In other words, both the men and women who adhere to the myths sanctioned by the ideology of male-dominance are equally to blame. Rape is a gender issue in that it is often based on a certain set of circumstances that psychologically condition both men and women to behave in certain ways. The boys did not fully realize the heinous nature of their crime and neither did the victim, her parents, or the community at large. This is evident not only in the initial reactions or lack thereof by the townspeople of Glen Ridge but also in the case against these teens whose punishment didn’t come close to justice for their crime.

According to Peggy Sanday, there are characteristics of societies like Glen Ridge that are discernable in their likeliness to be rape-prone. These include: Overlooked sexual assault by men, a male versus female dynamic within society, rigid gender roles, males encouraged to be aggressive, male-only spaces and activities, femininity as a criterion of insult and inferiority, and worship of a male god (Sanday). Every single one of these characteristics is present in Lefkowitz’s account of the Glen Ridge society in which the gang rape occurred. From parents to teachers, coaches, legislators, and religious institutions, Glen Ridge became the perfect storm for the rape of a young disabled girl by a group of teenage athletes. All parties involved in the social aspects of life in Glen Ridge adhered to principles that encouraged and allowed for the myth of male dominance to perpetuate and become the accepted norm, both male and female.

As if the criteria for a rape-prone society were not already evident, the legal case and the victim’s reaction to the event constitute classic examples of a rape-sign. The immediate reaction to want to hide what happened to her is congruent with how her teachers and parents acted as well. Finally, the larger society that dictated a rigid gender-based system of life found it nearly impossible to blame the boys the so ardently celebrated as “our guys.” Lefkowitz’s book can be viewed as a case study in the harmful effects of patriarchal societies and gender-based myths/ideologies. The very fact that happened in Glen Ridge in 1989 is an unfathomable event proves that our society wants to turn a blind eye to such gender-based victimization and instead believe yet another myth that bad things simply happen to good people, without placing any blame on the boys or the society that raised them to become as they were.

Works Cited

Beneke, Timothy. Men on Rape. (course handout)

Lefkowitz, Bernard. Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb.Berkeley: U C Press, 1997. Kindle ed.

Martin, Patricia Yancey. 2005. Rape Work. NY: Routledge, pp. 123-124.