Sexual Victimization Of College Women: Article Analysis

In the past couple of years there has been a rise of sexual assaults across college campuses. While sexual assaults have typically been greatly under-reported, we have started to see victims all across America take a stand and demand change and justice. “Five decades of research on higher education campuses in the United States have revealed that approximately 20% to 25% of women will experience attempted or completed rape during their college career” (Franklin et al., 2016). There needs to be a improvement in regards to having lower campus assaults rates so that female students can walk alone across campus, are no longer considered easy targets, or be afraid of their fellow peers. The focus of this paper will be to identify potential victims, explain under reporting, identify the typical type of offender, and identify what type of education needs to be taught.

Recently while reading Rolling Stone and looking for an article for this paper, and came across an article called “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA.” In summary, a freshman at the University of Virginia was at a frat party and her date was a member of that certain frat. She chose against drinking which is uncommon in most rape cases that occur on campuses. He later asks her to join him upstairs, and being an innocent naïve girl she decided to follow him. As soon as she entered the dark room and he did not turn on the lights she knew that something was wrong. Soon after she heard many different voices in the room and after seven different frat boys did horrid things to her she understood that this was something that some of these boys were doing this as an initiation into that frat. Of course, her friends who were so-called ‘loyal’ to their college urged her to keep quiet for fear that “she may never be allowed in a frat again” or “put a bad light on the university.” Furthermore, the UVA is under a federal investigation to try to determine if there have been other cases of rape that may have been ‘swept under the rug.’ In this essay I want to investigate the psychology of rape and the rapist, why it happens largely in college campuses and specifically fraternities, and also to understand the “rape culture.”

Sexual assault and rape are serious social and public health issues in the United States and throughout the rest of the world. In particular sexual assault on college campus are prevalent at an alarming rate and leaves serious effects on the victims. This essay will focus on statistics and the prevalence and effects amongst college students, through examining a number of reasons why women fail to report sexual assault and rape. This essay will also cover sexual assault prevention and things that can be done to mitigate the risk of becoming a victim to such matter.

This study focuses on high risk and low risk environments and relationship interactions to gain a perspective on rape culture. According to, “ FRATERNITIES AND COLLEGIATE RAPE Culture: Why Are Some Fraternities More Dangerous Places for Women?” by Boswell and Spade (1996) indicate that the relationship that is developed between men and women influence the way in which people are treated. Women and men often seek relationships differently then each other. The environments in which people interact impact the quality of relationship building. Along with values of the culture people are living in also influence the type of interactions seen as worthy or unworthy. The researchers in this study observes and interview people in a college setting based apon lifestyle choices such as living arrangements, the campus’ social setting, social environments, participation, interactions, values, awareness, relationship characteristics, respect, aggression, and interpersonal

Arditi, Lynn. "R.I. Schools Report 18% Increase In Sex Assaults." LexisNexis Academic [LexisNexis]. Providence Journal, 8 Oct. 2014. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.ytgfd

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.

Sexual abuse and assault on college campuses has been a rising issue dating back to the late 1950s. According to The United States Department of Justice, sexual assault is defined as “any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape.” Sexual assault has long lasting effects that go way beyond the immediate trauma that victims experience in the beginning, including pregnancy, transmitted diseases, anxiety, PTSD, depression, etc. Multiple studies and statistics have shown that not only will “approximately 20% female students

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

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

Fisher, B. S., Cullen, F. T., & Turner, M. G.. The sexual victimization of college women. 2000

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).

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.

When it comes to choosing a college, there are many factors in this major life decision: price, location, type of education, and finally, safety. Young women in college campuses across the country, although no campus is immune from these heinous acts, safety is still a main concern. “If you knew your son had a 20% chance of being held up at gunpoint, you’d think twice before dropping your kid off,” says Vice President Joe Biden. “Well, my God, you drop a daughter off, it’s 1 in 5 she could be raped or physically abused? It is just outrageous.” (TIME magazine). Twenty percent of young woman will be sexually assaulted during their college career. Why is sexual assault prevalent on college campuses now more than ever?

When colleges and universities are constantly in competition with each other for students, there are certain issues that occur. Competition has turned into universities and colleges often mishandling sexual assault and rape cases. Campuses want to minimize the danger that they may pose which leads to sexual assault and rape crimes to often be veiled. With this veil in place, it counters the efforts of colleges and universities to address the issue of sexual assault and rape. In July 2016, a survey was released to 350 colleges and university presidents. The purpose of this survey was to showcase whether sexual assault and rape cases were handled correctly or mishandled. Over the last five years, “more than 40 percent of the schools had not conducted a sexual assault and/or rape investigation” (citation). It was revealed that

In summary, national-level studies of college students’ victimization patterns show that college students, compared to people of similar ages who are not students, have lower overall levels of victimization, particularly violent victimization. These studies show that theft, and not violence (despite media obsession with shootings and other violent acts on campus), is by far the most frequent type of victimization. The surveys also show that a significant percentage of college women are victims of various forms of sexual assaults and that many victims never report the incident to proper authorities. Victimization surveys also show that students’ lifestyles—their routine activities— contribute to their on-campus victimization, particularly when