endingcollegesexualassault

[endingcollegesexualassault]

The Obama Administration has recently launched the “It’s On Us” campaign, aimed to stop sexual assault through bystander involvement. A White House Task Force was created to work with colleges and universities in responding to and preventing the acts from occurring.

Through empowering other students to help put a stop to a crime and help their peers in need, it involves the campus as a whole. It places no emphasis on what a woman should have done to prevent the attack, but puts it on society as a whole.

The campaign has been largely well known, and is endorsed by countless celebrities and many Big 10 schools, like Penn State.

You can take the pledge to help stop sexual assault at the website below:

http://itsonus.org

[endingcollegesexualassault]

It is time for everyone in today’s society to realize this. 

Photo courtesy of: pinterest.com

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Featured above are two products recently invented, aimed to “empower” women in preventing sexual assault. 

A group of male students at North Carolina State University have founded the company “Undercover Colors” and invented a special type of nail varnish. It can detect the presence of date rape drugs when dipped into a drink. 

https://www.facebook.com/undercovercolors

Next, two women from New York founded “AR Wear” and released a new product: “anti-rape underwear”. It uses a specific design so that the fabric resists cutting and pulling. Because of this, only the person who is wearing them can remove them. 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ar-wear-confidence-protection-that-can-be-worn

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“Empowering” Women

Intentionally, the development of products like those from “AR Wear” and “Undercover Colors” is good. They are steps in the right direction to stopping sexual assault. However, they claim to “empower” women to protect themselves from sexual assault, when what they are really doing is simply providing women with ways to avoid the attacks from happening in isolated incidents. 

A young woman should be able to go out at night on her own college campus and not feel unsafe because she forgot to put on a certain pair of underwear or coat of nail polish. 

Bottom line: The products put emphasis on what a woman should have done and not enough on what her attacker should not have done.  They inadvertently encourage the idea that rape and sexual assault occur because of what a woman is wearing, which is entirely untrue. This attitude fails to empower anyone but the perpetrators. 

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An article in the Journal of College Student Development examined the behavior of all male groups on college campuses, and found that “men [who] socialized in all male groups, including fraternities, athletic teams, and all male residence hall floors have higher acceptance of rape myths and traditional gender role expectations” (Barone, Linder and Wolgemuth, 587). 

Another study from Wayne University surveyed the attitudes and personality traits found in perpetrators of sexual assault, and found that men who committed sexual assault were more hostile toward women and lower in empathy compared to other men (Seto and Barbaree,1). They also found that these men were more likely to have experienced abuse or violence as a child (Seto and Barbaree,1). 

Photo courtesy of: totalfratmove.com

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Think about it:

Organizations like fraternities and all-male sports teams do not have any female involvement, so they can allow for those who have deeper-rooted sexist or misogynistic attitudes to express them more freely. These organizations can become a sort of breeding ground for such attitudes, increasing those that already exist or causing them in new people. 

Imagine the environment of a typical fraternity party. Excessive drinking, drug use, and the exploitation of women are all present, sometimes even condoned. Next, mix in the poor judgement that alcohol causes with pre-existing issues like misogynistic or sexist attitudes, and bad things are bound to happen. 

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Alcohol’s Involvement in Sexual Assault on College Campuses

A study at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan found that while “alcohol consumption and sexual assault frequently co-occur, this phenomena does not prove that alcohol use causes sexual assault” (Abbey, 119).

http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/media/journal/118-abbey.pdf

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Susan Patton

Susan Patton is a Princeton Alumni, and mother of two current students. In the They are both male. In the media, she is known as “The Princeton Mom” and  published author of books like “Marry by Choice, Not by Chance” and “Marry Smart: Advice for Finding The One”. Both of these books are stuffed with Patton’s dated point of view, and rather sexist pieces of advice. To start off, in “Marry Smart”, Patton tells young women in college: “I advise you invest your effort and energy at least 75 percent in searching for a partner and 25 percent in professional development” (Patton,2014).

Basically, she is telling young women that while they are at college to receive a higher education and develop their own careers, they should spend a majority of their time searching for a husband.

With advice like this, it only seems right that when Patton was interviewed on CNN about the recent surge of recent rapes on college campuses, she would respond with something equally unsettling. When asked about the influence of alcohol in these situations, she responded: “If you are too drunk to speak, then you may be incapable of saying no or warding off unwanted advances. And then it’s all on you” (Patton).

And then it’s all on you.

Translation: If a young woman drinks too much at a party and is sexually assaulted, she should take responsibility for the crime. It is her fault, simply because she could not stop it from happening.

People who think like Susan Patton are one of the main reasons why victim blaming still exists. With words like that, she places the sole responsibility of prevention of the crime in the hands of the victims.  

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Author of "Marry Smart" Susan Patton talks about sexual violence, victim blaming and protection. More from CNN at http://www.cnn.com/ To license this and oth...

Above is Susan Patton’s full interview on CNN, in which she talks about  women’s need to protect themselves. Her argument is a stern request for college women to change their drinking habits, disguised as a message that is pro-women.

Her overarching message: Don’t get too drunk, because then you will not be able to prevent a sexual assault from occurring. Not once does she address the need to tell young men not to commit these crimes in the first place.

Patton even tries to redefine rape, saying “we are now talking about,or identifying as rape what really is a clumsy hook-up melodrama or a fumbled kiss or caress”.

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Something to think about:

How is it fair that when a young woman drinks heavily, she must worry about the possibility of an assault against her and a young man does not have to worry about the same?

In such cases, the amount of alcohol  a female has had does not change the fact that a man took advantage of her, and a crime was committed. 

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College Women:Stop Getting Drunk

Emily Yoffe, a columnist on Slate.com is another woman who speaks about the influence of alcohol consumption and sexual assaults on college campuses. She does this in her article: “College Women: Stop Getting Drunk”. 

It is yet another article that pins the responsibility to stop sexual assault on the crime’s victims, saying that, “we are failing to let women know that when they render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them” (Yoffe, 1). 

Are people like Emily Yoffe not also failing to let the perpetrators of these crimes  know that they shouldn’t do these “terrible things” in the first place? No matter how drunk she may be, or how easy it may seem? 

While it is a valid suggestion that a young woman in college should not drink excessively every weekend, it should not be made because of its potential in leading to sexual assault. 

Here is the link to Yoffe’s article, so you can take a look at exactly what she says for yourself:

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/10/sexual_assault_and_drinking_teach_women_the_connection.html

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Sexual Assault has become a major issue on college campuses across the country. The United States department of Justice reports that 1 in 5 women will experience attempted or completed sexual assault during her time at college (Banyard, Crossman and Moynihan, 446).