In a society dominated by patriarchal standards and plagued by its consequences, it is crucial to understand the variety of cultural patterns present in our everyday. Within the context of a university environment, in particular, individuals are faced with decisions and situations that hold potentially dangerous and damaging consequences. Whether we are enabling these situations directly or merely bearing witness to their results, we must all work to gain an understanding of these patterns and reflect inwardly about our values before we can make a legitimate social change. Below, I discuss three quotations that present issues especially relevant to college campus sexual assault, and how the authors’ discussion of these topics has affected me emotionally and intellectually.
In “The XYZ Express”, Sanday relays the stories of two women intimately involved in the culture of a typical fraternity and its brothers. One woman, Alice, expresses opinions consistent with the normalization of victim blaming and an absence of “collective responsibility” (72). Alice believes that women, including herself, who put themselves in certain situations are inevitably “asking for it.” She does not possess a clear definition of rape, especially because the girl featured, Laurel, “didn’t care enough to protect herself” (73).
Early in the narrative, Alice suspects that a girl was assaulted after seeing her the morning after a party. She claims: “Ignorance was fine with me. It wasn’t any of my
The other portion of rape culture that is especially dominant in fraternities and athletes is the role of secrecy. These social groups are so tightly knit that they learn from each other and support each other no matter what. The loyalty of peer support from the members comes hand in hand with brotherhood and a team. They have a group secrecy that forbids revealing the unexpected behavior of others in order to protect members within the group, as well as the group’s reputation. As Hummer (1989) notes, “brotherhood norms require sticking together regardless of right or wrong”. This secrecy allows fraternity brothers and athletes to justify and endorse rape, because they have the support from their closest friends. These “members are admonished to avoid getting the fraternity in trouble” (Hummer, 1989), shows how this “brotherhood” built in a fraternity does everything in their power to be safeguarded from negative criticism. Not only will these men keep each other’s secrets, but they also commend and encourage these actions. Said by a fraternity pledge whom had previously dropped from the fraternity, “Those guys are sick. They like seeing you suffer” (Hummer,1989), shows how these men in fraternities treat these woman, and even their own
Sexual assault on college campuses is an extensive topic that has concerned people for many years. The high rates and the case report cover-ups have brought about many varying opinions. Many people believe in changing the college framework to establish universities that are better equipped to deal with this issue. Others feel that the problem could be addressed by changing society’s outlook on crimes like these. While another group feels that the problem is in how we define rape. Despite these differences in opinions, one thing is clear, everyone agrees that something must be done to reduce sexual assault on campuses.
The alarming increase in sexual assault among male and female students is a source of concern. Despite improvements in the general statistics on rape cases, the college setting remains to be the hot bed of sexual assault, especially among the female counterparts (Allen, 2007). A victim, regardless being a male or a female, never feel safe in their life as something precious was taken from them once. Statistics show that 17.6% of women are likely to be victims of rape in their entire lifetime while only 0.3% of males are estimated to be the victims of sexual assault. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS), the most critical ages men and females are likely to be engaged in sexual abuse is when they are children or adolescents (Gonzales, Schofield & Schmitt, 2006).
In the article “Athletic club weekend turns into a nightmare for college freshman” by Carol smith and Lee Van Der Voo, Emily Lorenzen shares her story of being a rape victim. Emily shares her account because she wants to help to prevent rape from happening to anyone else. After interviewing Emily the authors shared a statement expressing that “Emily lorenzen believes that if people hear her story, they will be more comfortable confronting the issue of sexual assault on campus. She wants more conversation, so that men get a clearer definition of rape, face stiffer penalties if they ignore it and administrators learn to reach out to women like her and show compassion. She especially wants bystanders to step up and protect people who are vulnerable.” Rape victims need support to not feel guilty or ashamed, and that is exactly what Emily and her father desire. On this topic, Shipman an influential contributor of the Spokane sexual assault
I interviewed two women and one man about the University of Iowa’s efforts with respect to sexual assault on campus. The first person I interviewed was a twenty-one year old woman from England named Gina. Michaela, an eighteen year old female from a small-town Southern Baptist high school, was the second female I interviewed. The only man I interviewed was Matt, a 19 year old male from a mid-sized town.
Sexual assault is defined as any vaginal, oral, or anal penetration that is forced upon another, regardless of sex and sexual orientation, using any object or body part. The issue of sexual assault in America is primarily encouraged by rape culture. Women Against Violence Against Women is an organization that defines rape culture as a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. The acceptance of rape culture, rape myths, and the disregard for sexual consent also allow for the perpetuation of sexual assault against women on college campuses. Recent examples of sexual assault on college campuses show how prominent this issue has become and how hostile campuses have become for female students. Some examples include the University of Southern California’s “Gullet Report,” Miami University of Ohio’s “Top Ten Ways to Get Away with Rape,” and a sexual assault on the campus of Kansas University. Sexual assault is perpetuated by the acceptance of rape myths and rape culture, lack of effective sexual education, and the disregard for consent. The solution to this issue lies with defeating rape culture, increasing awareness and funding for campus sexual assault crisis centers, and enacting more prevention programs on campus.
The article introduces sexual assault to readers as a problem that is in line with other forms of violence such as domestic violence, dating violence and stalking. It gives a figure of 19% undergraduate women who have reported a complete or attempted sexual assault while in campus and worth noting is that in most of the incidences, the victims knew the perpetrators, who also feature in other related crimes.
This Colloquium was important for us, the students of The Honors College, to attend because it granted us advice and knowledge in regards to an issue which is incredibly relevant to us, consent and campus safety. We as college students are a vulnerable population since, according to the information provided to us by the speaker, 11.2% of college students, graduate, and undergraduate, in America will experience some form of sexual assault. This means that sadly we must be prepared to deal with situations like those and to do so we must be informed about what to do if such a situation presents itself. The speaker also made sure to give us advice on what to do when we are not in such a situation ourselves but are witnessing it. Her suggestions
“Among undergraduate students, 23.1% of females and 5.4% of males experience rape or sexual assault” (RAINN). Rape is a threat virtually anywhere people go, but no place has a higher risk for sexual assault than college campuses. However, many of these occurrences go without penalties against the attacker, and even more are not reported at all. The lack of consequences for the accused indirectly suggests that rape and other forms of sexual assault are allowable and create further problems for the victims of the horrendous actions. Harsher punishments need to be given out for sexual assault on campus, as the current rulings are biased and immoral.
Before discussing the sexual assault crisis on college campuses, it is important to disprove some misconceptions. When someone reports a sexual assault, society tends to immediately deny the assault happened, claiming false accusation, but, according to Stanford’s “Men Against Abuse Now” report, only two percent of allegations are false, a
The topic of sexual assault has always been a tough subject to discuss because it is a heinous crime that can and has happened to men, women, young and old. It is a topic that is disturbing and heart wrenching, especially when involving children. In the past few years, our media outlets have captured the images and stories on sexual assault, focusing mainly on College Institutions and how sexual assault cases have been handled within those institutions. Sexual assault is a very important topic to discuss, since this can happen to anyone you know, man or woman, adult or child, or yourself. This paper will touch on the different types of sexual assault, stigma of sexual assault, treatment of sexual assault, and understanding the perpetrator. There will be a brief discussion of the current social issue of college campus sexual assault. Sexual assault is such a wide topic with many areas to discuss, but this paper will outline the basic understanding of sexual assault and what can be done to overcome this stigma of sexual assault and how we can help the victims/survivors.
Boucek, Brooke W. “Riding the He-Said-She-Said Dichotomy: The Deep Entanglement of Sexual Violence on College Campuses.” American Journal of Trial Advocacy, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 103-129.
Sexual assault on college campuses is a subject that comes up commonly in media today, usually due to the fact that these assaults happen on a regular basis. About one in four women and one in seven men are victims of some form of sexual violence during their college experience (Abooali). In most occurances when speaking about sexual assault on campus, people are talking about what the main cause of these cases of sexual assault could be, and if there is any way to prevent it from happening. There are many factors that play into these sexual assaults such as alcohol consumption, peer pressure, society's normalization of these assaults, and party culture.
Sexual assault has been a huge issue for many years on college campuses and universities nation wide. As society has evolved, thoughts on sexual assault have also evolved, becoming more focused on the details of victim treatment than ever before. The topic of sexual assault is debatable and sparks many opinions on weather sexual assault on college campuses is becoming more frequent, or if there is just heightened awareness. Sexual assault can happen to anybody no matter the gender, race, religion, or age. Recently there have been many studies conducted on sexual violence on college campuses and universities producing ample amounts of statistics. One may argue that sexual assault rates are the same, but there are simply more studies and attention on sexual assault in the past 20 years. Gender roles have played a huge part in sexual assault on college campuses. Women and men have different expectations when it comes to roles in the relationship, men are often expected to make the first move. One may ask what causes a perpetrator to sexually harass somebody and think it is acceptable. There are various reasons as to why perpetrators do what they do, and may vary from person to person. Although sexual violence is a large problem for many colleges and universities, there is a surprising shortage of federal laws/rules and regulations regarding sexual assault. Colleges are able to develop their own personal policies and procedures for how they will prevent and deal with sexual
College-age adults are known to be high risk for sexual violence and most studies show that one in three women have experiences some type of sexual assault whether it was through physical force or harassment. These statics are known by most women on college campuses to ensure that women know and understand that this could happen to them. The issue is more than ensuring that women are aware of how protect themselves and know how to avoid these situations because it shouldn’t even be happening. When women are taught that they should know how to defend themselves we are saying that this type of behavior is normal and inevitable. We should shift from this dynamic and start teaching both men and women that this behavior is completely unacceptable and that sexually assaulting or harassing someone is NOT normal. This paper will mostly focus on incidents of rape and sexual assault on college campuses and what the outcome and reactions of these incidents were.