Sexual Harassment In Rape Culture

The problem: Sexual assault has become one of the forefront issues of our day. There has been an increasing rate of sexual assaults in our society and specifically on college campuses.

Last week, the White House released a short, celebrity packed, 60-second public service announcement (PSA) on the topic of sexual assault. 1 is 2 Many addressed those who are in control of preventing sexual assault as its intended audience was those who can put a stop to sexual violence: the perpetrators or would-be offenders. Although this one minute announcement completed the task of bringing sexual assault to the forefront of discussion, it failed to encompass the central issues concerning the culture of sexual assault: societal misperceptions, the victims, and the justice system. Sexual assault is a phenomenon that has been around for centuries; the culture of sexual assault is rooted in both legal practices and societal perceptions.

University of Tennessee Knoxville was recently involved in a lawsuit for enabling athletes to sexually assault women by silencing the victims and failing to provide disciplinary actions or even investigation onto the accused. While this is a recent case, this is not the first time this sort of behavior involving a school has been brought into light. One in four women will be sexually assaulted by the end of their undergraduate career (Posluszny). Sexual assault happens throughout society no matter what the gender or age, seeming to be in increasing epidemic over the last few years. While the idea of sexual assault is largely met with public hostility in theory, actions often contradict this. This contradiction lies heavily in a culture that is unwelcoming to the victims and often leads to the perpetrators being tolerated. The existence of rape culture in western society occurs due to the preservation of violent media, patriarchal standards, and the state of the criminal justice system. This culture cannot be improved until we confront each of these problems to their roots.

Sexual assault policy in the United States as it stands is clearly inadequate for protecting the physical wellbeing of men and women from sexual assault. Layering of policy serves a s a Band-Aid on a social wound much too large to be contained and the rise of sexual assault as a public problem reiterates the need for greater legislation and policy to protect everyone from becoming prey to the crime of sexual assault. While eyes focus on the (disproven) rise of violence in the United States, and turn to gun control, other violent crimes are forgotten. Sexual Assault has seen several cases of policy failure that actors have tried to salvage through the act of policy layering and have not significantly resolved the problem.

The issue of sexual harassment on college campuses is an issue today that I feel is very important to look at. Many young men and woman go off to school to get an education maybe even to get away from issues at home and of course have fun at the same time. Sexual harassment gets over looked by many people when they come to college. It 's thought to be " oh it won 't happen to me" that 's the thought that gets young woman and in some cases men in trouble. Sexual harassment or assault isn 't just an issue that can occur at parties. The harassment can be an issue even in a classroom. It 's a problem all over the United States , and across the world as well. The only way to address sexual harassment and violence is through the implementation of sexual assault policies by colleges and universities. It has also been noted even with policies, the assault still occurs. The American Association of University Woman reported in 2005 that " 62% of female college students report incidents of sexual harassment at their university." ( Marshall, Dalyot, Galloway, P. 276) It was also stated in a report that the real number of incidents may be higher, given that 10% of students never report their incidents to administration or faculty members. Sexual harassment can include " unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature." (Marshall, Dalyot, Galloway, P.278) " In 2010, the DOE

One of the most influential of these are the affirmative consent laws. These laws are defined as “the choice of some schools to require the presence of ongoing agreement, not just the absence of refusal, in sexual encounters” (Boyd). The presence of affirmative consent laws would greatly help the victims in their cases, as without confirmation that the attacked was consensual throughout the entirety of the incident, the accused would be unable to be let off without some form of punishment. Despite this, the laws are currently not enforced in the majority of campuses, leaving victims susceptible to unfair judgments that are in favor of the accused, as rape is often unreasonably viewed as being acceptable if the person had never objected, even if they had not given consent. Additionally, even if they state that they protested the actions, numerous people can also claim that they are lying. In the case of people that had been drunk, unconscious, or otherwise unable to give a logical or coherent answer when being attacked, the blame will often be put on them, despite the obvious horrendous acts of the attacker. Moreover, laws stating the severity of these crimes and how harsh the punishments should be are often overlooked, or not fully enforced, like the affirmative consent laws. In the aforementioned case of Brock Turner, his sentencing was particularly light, even for someone who received some form of sentence, as he faced a maximum of fourteen years in prison, while the prosecutors asked for at least six years (Cleary). The lack of punishments given to sexual predators will go on to further harm the attacked and give the impression that there is nothing wrong with sexual

Sexual assault is a big issue on college campuses all over the country and it affects everyone that is involved. Sexual assault has increased throughout college campuses in the United States. Because of this the U.S developed a Campus Security Act in 1990 and Crime Awareness. George H. W Bush signed this bill into existence in 1990 (Lee 8). The government is putting a lot of pressure on college administrations to help prevent the chance that one of their students may be drugged and/or sexually assaulted. People are afraid that colleges and administrators are not doing their best to prevent sexual assault on students and they aren’t fully providing the support to the victims. One in five women who attend a college

Every 98 seconds sexual assault occurs. More than 570 people in the United States alone face sexual assault in the duration of 24 hours. A large percent of these victims are students. Rape and sexual assault is escalating rapidly throughout the country within highschool and college students meanwhile schools are not addressing these issues. Many factors contribute to the rise of sexual assault such as; illegal drinking, greek-life, lack of police related officials, and campuses are not supporting them. Although students don’t speak up about sexual assault because they are afraid of getting in trouble, these incidents are occurring more and more. Schools need to address the issue of sexual assault on campuses because it is the victims and their

Sexual assault is everywhere, but did you know that on college campuses one of every four people have been a victim of sexual assault (Stampler 1). That is a staggering statistic of just how many people are affected by this crime. Sexual assault, while a long standing crime, has been brought into the spotlight more and more over the last twenty years. While there are several steps already in place to help lower this statistic there are additional things that can be done to help reduce the rate of sexual assaults on college campuses. By being more open with conversations about sexual assault, having support groups available, and changing policies universities can be successful in reducing the number of sexual assaults on their campuses.

Colleges have begun to share the number of sexual assault cases that occur on campus and are making efforts in order to produce a smaller number. They are trying to influence more victims to speak up about sexual assault and are creating an easier way to report these crimes on college campuses. Today, there are multiple solutions to solving the crime of sexual assault, and a substantial amount of these methods are being implemented at colleges nationwide. While sexual assault is common on numerous school campuses and is the most underreported crime in America, the government, along with colleges, are doing what they can in order to persuade more victims to report it and prevent it from

For years, women have been sexualized publicly on television and other forms of media. With twisted TV shows such as Law and Order and CSI glorifying the stone-cold reality of sexual assaults and rapes that occur daily on college campuses. Television gives away a blissful ending with every sexual assault or rape, but it is far from the truth. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 80% of rape and sexual assaults of female students goes unreported to the police. (Langston) This does not mean it was never documented, the reports were made to the campus police, then should be passed on to the Special Victims Unit, but almost always the report is put aside, forgotten about, then eventually lost. Two solutions of trying to help this overwhelming statistic are to constantly educate female students about the harsh reality of sexual

Earlier in 2015, a man named Brock Turner, aged 20, was convicted on three counts of sexual assault after he was found sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster outside a fraternity house on the Stanford campus (Knowles 2016). Two Swedish students witnessed the event and pulled Turner off the young woman, holding him until the police arrived and in March 2016, the jury found Turner guilty (Knowles 2016). The case would have been forgotten, thrown under the immense pile of campus rape incidents in the US, had it not been for Judge Aaron Persky and his decision to award Turner a sentence of six months in a county jail and probation rather than the ten years in prison his conviction warranted (Knowles 2016). Outrage ensued surrounding this decision and the fact that Persky justified his choice by citing that, “a prison sentence would have a severe impact on him, I think he will not be a danger to others” (Fantz 2016). As if the victim of his crime hadn’t already been severely impacted by his actions, and will continue to be impacted for the rest of her life. Her suffering was compounded when she did not receive a simple apology or acceptance of responsibility, and also failed to receive the justice that the system should have awarded her. It is here that we see white male privilege and the culture of victim blaming coalesce with horrifying outcomes. The attention that Brock Turner has brought to this cultural issue is the reason for which he should remain a

The endless news stories regarding sexual assaults on college campuses reinforce that there is a lack of safety among students and support towards the victims. One reason that sexual assault rates remain high is because many schools are in denial that there is an issue. The molestations are unwanted and forced upon by an individual or group. The most common form of sexual assault is rape. The attacks can occur at any time of the day, but a majority of sexual assaults take place at parties, where alcohol and drugs are involved. Predators may take advantage of a person through date rape drugs or peer pressure that can lead to alcohol blackouts. Statistics say that every 2 minutes an American is being sexually assaulted. This issue has been around for decades and laws have been implemented. Unfortunately, there are an average of 288,820 victims each year

Sexual assault is all around society. It is constantly on TV, news reports, and social media feeds. It has become greater every year, and it needs to be stopped. Rape Culture now is making it alright for men to use sexual violence and blame the women for it. Someone 's right to make their own decision can be taken from them at any given moment. Some Universities are rarely handling these situations, but most of them are not handling it at all. They are not getting the cops involved, or victims are having a difficult time coming forward. Many would say Universities need to step in and work on expressing campus safety to their students; however, many rapes may not even be on campus. Some think Universities should not have any involvement with sexual assault cases.

Sexual assault and rape are on-going issues plaguing college campuses all across the nation. In part, I believe this is due to a lack of education on what sexual assault actually is. All too often, victims are leaving these situations feeling confused about something that they will forever deem "a weird night". It often isn't until much later that they realize what happened to them was a violation of their body and of their rights.