Trepidation Of Wrongdoing Exploitation

There is presently much controversy regarding acquaintance rape victims and their level of culpability. Benevolent sexists promote the belief that these individuals can actually be blamed for their experiences because they adopted behaviors that were sexually immoral and that influenced the perpetrators to go through with their plans. Barbara Masser, Kate Lee, and Blake M. McKimmie's article "Bad Woman, Bad Victim? Disentangling the Effects of Victim Stereotypicality, Gender Stereotypicality and Benevolent Sexism on Acquaintance Rape Victim Blame" attempts to provide more information in regard to how particular factors might influence acquaintance rape victims.

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.

One in five women will be a victim of completed or attempted sexual assault while in college. (Krebs, Lindquist, Warner, Fisher, & Martin, 2007)

In Acquaintance “Rape and the College Social Scene,” the authors, Sally K. Ward, Kathy Chapman, Ellen Cohn, Susan White and Kirk Williams, main purpose was to report on a study they performed of the cases of sexual assaults at a specific college campus. The article provides estimates of the rate of acquaintance rape, recounting the situations surrounding the acquaintance rape, and people working toward making policies against this type of aggression. This article focuses on the themes of underreporting of the assaults, the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, and the link between alcohol use and assault. Underreporting happens normally because the assault was done by someone the victim knew. If the perpetrator is known to the victim, people are less likely to label what transpired as rape.

As Karjane, Fisher, and Cullen have noted, “Just under 3% of all college women become victims of rape (either completed or attempted) in a given 9 month academic year” (2). This translates into 35 crimes per 1000 women students on campus. With the numbers so high, prevention methods need to be taken. In their journal article, Brian Payne and Gina Respass, professors of criminal justice at Old Dominion University, proclaim that a way to help prevent and reduce sexual assaults on campuses is for everyone needs to get involved. This means that the student body, university professors, and staff need to work together to bring a more connected community and help reduce these assaults on their grounds (264). The Campus Sexual Assault Victims’ Bill

Sexual Assault is an ongoing crime that is common among college campuses. As a woman in college, it is frightening to go to school, where there is a possibility of becoming one of the five women who are victimized everyday in the United States. There is a constant fear for women who attend a college that have a history of reports on sexual assault.

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.

Sexual assault on college campuses is a major occurrence. Rape, and other forms of sexual assault are common throughout any part of the world. However, studies show that women who attend higher education institutions are at a greater risk of experiencing sexual assault (Fisher, B. S., Cullen, F. T., & Turner, M. G. (2000). In this same study, it concludes that in a college with 10,000 female students, more than 350 rapes will occur per year (Fisher, B. S., Cullen, F. T., & Turner, M. G. (2000). It can also be observed that rates of sexual assault are relatively even across all races (Smith, P.H., White,

The issue of sexual assaults on college campus leads to the creation of programs and new policies within institutions, but It also encourages innovators to create new approaches to prevent or alleviate the issue. A program that aimed to train first-year female college students to “avoid rape substantially lowered their risk of being sexually assaulted” (Hoffman). Other programs like Bringing in the Bystander try to approach the issue by increasing bystander awareness of the problem expecting a safer environment (National Institute of Justice). For Instance, “in one study, rates of sexual harassment and stalking victimization and perpetration were lower at a college with a bystander-training program than at two colleges without such a program”

Researchers have found that, in general, males tend to be more critical toward females who partake in casual sexual relationships; men tend to inflate the number, and experiences, in regards to their sexual relations to enhance their status amongst peers while women reduce the number of sexual experiences as their statuses are diminished amongst their peers with higher numbers (England & Bearak, 2014). This type of sexual double standard can contribute towards sexual assault perpetrations due to perpetrators exploiting intimidating strategies to obtain sexual experience to increase their status quo (Littleton, 2014).

Sexual assault for higher education students occurs more frequently against women, but any gender can be victimized. All ethnicities and social classes are affected. While the rate of violent crime against higher education students aged 18–24 in the United States declined significantly from 1995 to 2002, the rates of rape and other sexual assault largely remained the same. Estimates of sexual assault, which vary based on definitions and methodology, range from 0.61% of female students sexually assaulted annually to 19–27% of college women and 6–8% of college men sexually assaulted during their time in college.

In order to statistically see the differences in sexual victimization by gender, research needs to be geared towards both genders, rather than focusing on one. Society tends to believe that men cannot be raped, and place a stigma around sexual assault that it is “ a crime against women”, but research proves this to be false (Hines, Armstrong, Reed & Cameron, 2012, p.935). Research that has been conducted on men has found that female perpetrators will rape “10%-22% of men” (Hines, Armstrong, Reed & Cameron, 2012, p.922). The statistics are representative of the problem at hand, and further research is required to understand gender differences on sexual assault

Despite the efforts of advocates and activists to end and prevent sexual violence on institutions of higher education, the rate of sexual violence against women on college campuses continues to be 20-25% (ACPA, n.d.). Sexual violence impacts students, faculty, staff, administrators and the entire higher education community, directly or indirectly. Sexual violence affects individuals from across all racial and ethnic backgrounds, gender identifications and sexual orientations.

They also argued that since men and women have reproductive sexual differences, it could provide females with more opportunities for certain types of crimes, such as prostitution. In the gendered perspective, the context of offending is different between the two sexes even though it may be the same offense. This may tie into the motivation of crime in women, where they take greater risks for relationships whereas men take greater risks for status or competition. This theory has not yet received a formal test but it goes hand in hand with research done on gender and crime, it integrates feminist and traditional theories. Changing the norms of sexes would be one way to reduce

(Lane 2009)- The study looked at the fear of violent crimes especially sexual assault and the perceived risk of sexual assault. The study built on Ferraro (1996) and Fisher and Soloan’s (2003) work, where looked at the impact of the fear of the robbery and assault. Their findings are that the fear of sexual assault is the stranger predictor fear and that perceived risk is a stronger predictor for measure. The fear of sexual assault is not just a female fear. Men are also strong factor in their fear of crime.