Vulnerability brings a coldness throughout the body. Not just a shiver down the spine but a feeling that leaves your entire soul exposed. Before something bad happens, a wave of vulnerability floods over the body and your mind becomes self-aware of what is about to happen. Now imagine this feeling happening to you in your own community, your own home. This happens to nearly twelve percent of students on their own college campuses (“Campus Sexual Violence: Statistics”). A place where they are supposed to feel at home and safe, but instead are sexually assaulted and left felt feeling vulnerably and pathetic. Every year the statistics become higher and the community is left feeling more unsafe, so what is happening about it? Questions about the matter are being asked more than ever and being brought to the attention of the nation. So what exactly is going on with sexual abuse on campus?
History
Sexual assault on college campus has been an issue
since the fifties but only recently has begun to show up in the media. Over the
decades, the rates have increased and people have become more cautious. In the
eighties the term “date rape” was introduced, and it became more common to use
roofies, flunitrazepam, a drug that is often slipped into people’s drinks to
drug and rape a victim. (Kamenetz, Anya.) In the early twenty first century, the term
“train rape” became common to represent when someone is raped by several people
without consent. Today, eleven percent of students experience sexual assault in
college and it is continuing to grow. (Cantor). A recent turn of events has
recently surfaced, women have begun to report false rape cases in order to gain
money and attention. One of the most recent cases involves a women named Yovino
who reported to the police she was sexually assaulted by two of the football
players at her campus (Tepfer). This new set of cases is not only disappointing
but continues to set back real cases of sexual assault. Most sexual assault
cases have a reputation of not receiving justice so this sets back their
justice even more.
Example
Right before college you prepare for
everything, keeping your grades up, how to cook for yourself, how to clean, and
everything else you need to know so you are ready to live by yourself. You
prepare for months, doing research and asking older friends and siblings trying
to get the best information you can so you feel prepared for the next chapter
in your life. You don’t put into account that you also should be preparing to
on how to keep yourself safe at all times. Your parents warn you to be cautious
and your teachers explain the severity of always being alert, but you don’t
realize how terrible things can get till it happens to you.
Beckett Brennan was just like
everyone going into college, overly excited and ready for all the new
experiences (Messick 1). She committed to University of Pacific in Stockton,
California where they gave her a full ride on a basketball scholarship. She was
going through her freshman year easy and claimed to be having a good season in
basketball too, "Yes. Great year," Brennan said. "Actually
played and made an impact, I'd like to think." (Messick 1) She had become
comfortable and made friends, forgetting that some people were not as
trustworthy as the new friends she had made. Beckett, like most college
students, went to parties and participated in underage drinking and letting
loose and in May of 2008 she did exactly that. She, with her teammates, went to
a party in the one of the housing complexes the “Townhomes” and there had
participated in underage drinking. Over the course of the night, she had
switched locations to another party and realized that she was alone and had
lost track of her other friends. Tipsy and unable to drive responsibly, she had
taken up two of the male basketball players offer to drive her back. Although
this seems like a big red flag to most people that are told the story, she
claims she knew the players, and they seemed to have no intention of anything
bad, “There were no red flags that came up. No reason not to trust them."
(Graham Messick and Ashley Velie page 1) After arriving back to the “Townhomes”
she started to feel uncomfortable when the players lured her back to their
apartment and had claimed that the party was continuing there. At their
apartment Beckett lost her sense of self and was taken advantage in more than
just one way. The two boys she had trusted lead her to an empty bedroom where
they raped her and told her, “Don't tell anybody, and this is our little secret.” (Messick
and Velie page 2) She thought it was over until another one of the male
basketball players came in and continued to rape her for the third time.
Beckett not only was sexually assaulted, but she was left feeling exposed and
vulnerable and she was too scared to go to any authorities.
After being sexually assaulted, she
had called her friends to get her and told them what had happened but strangely
didn’t want to go to the authorities. Her friends got worried about her and
discovered that one of the players had recorded raping her. After seeing the
footage they went to the school board and showed them the evidence which went
on to the cops. Even after going to the cops and going to court the result was
disappointing, of the three guys, none of them were arrested. They were let off
with a semester or year suspension, resulting in a news story that spread
across America. (Couric)
Effects
on Society
Beckett’s
story seems typical compared to other rape victims’ stories, but Beckett’s caught
the attention of the media across America. Her story is unique because hers is
one of the few stories to be published and expose the true nature of the
justice system. After spreading across the internet, she appeared on 60 minutes
and begun change across the nation. The overall population realized the reality
of the danger on college campuses. Not only that but the female population
became more protective, promoting tips on self-protection in any circumstance.
It continues to grow as the liberal community grows. Today with social media
students post about sketchy experiences they have had on or around their
campus, trying to warn other students. On a poll on twitter asking whether or
not they have seen and benefited by these posts around seventy percent of them
said that it did (Thompson). Students have begun to notice the growth of sexual
assault and have started to use their resources to prevent it.
Sexual assault has been put in the dark for so long
due to college campuses not wanting to tamper their reputation. When people are
left feeling unsafe and vulnerable they lose a part of themselves and this
epidemic is growing, creating this problem for a bigger population of the
students. Educating kids on this issue before they go off to college creates
precaution that can save them from being sexually assaulted.
Rape
is a hard thing to try to cure, even prevent, through the nation and even in
one school. We are taught as kids to never talk to strangers and always be
careful who you hang around with but actually be aware is harder than one
thought. In college people are focused so much on their own image, their
grades, how they look, who likes them that
they often forget about their own safety. Over the years students have
developed new and more inventive ways of staying safe.
Technology is a young adult’s best
friend, with social media, music, and television being the new obsession of the
decade. Everyone is obsessed with the new and creative little apps that seem to
do everything. People started to take this into account when they realize that
safety is a hug concern in college and started developing safety apps. There
are dozens today from bSafe to Watch Over Me, all of them saving the same
concept. They all have an emergency call button so that in any situation where
you feel unsafe you can use the app without drawing attention to yourself.
These new apps make a super convenient way of staying safe whenever a student
is at a party or out late at night or even if they just feel unsafe. This way
someone doesn’t have to worry about being on high alert all the time.
Although an app is the most
convenient way today to feel safe, you should always have a backup plan.
Anytime someone goes out to a party they should bring a friend to hang around
and never leave with anyone they don’t know. They should never drink anything
that they put down or was open, to prevent being roofied. They should have
campus security number saved and some campuses even have emergency ports where
you can click a button and security will come to you. A good way to stay safe
is to also carry pepper spray on a key chain and be mindful of how to protect
yourself. There are dozens of more ways to feel and stay safe, it just most
important to stay safe.
Most people that attend college are
aware of the danger and statistics of rape and sexual abuse yet don’t keep it
in mind. This epidemic is one of the more feared, especially by parents, yet
doesn’t make headlines and is rarely talked about. The fact that a student
would feel unsafe and unprotected in their own home is absurd. We are
constantly having to be cautious of ourselves and the people around us now,
even in own homes. One of the more crazy things that involve sexual assault are
the predators. Rape and sexual assaulting someone is one of the dozens of signs
of serial killers, making it even scarier on a college campus (GERBER).
No one assumes bad things will
happen to them, especially on their own campus a place where they are supposed
to feel safe. There are many ways to stay safe and try to prevent getting
yourself or others into a bad situation. Cases like Beckett Brennen’s show that
there isn’t much justice for those that have been victims to rape on coll. ege
campus and should be proof to anyone who goes into college that situations like
hers actually happen. In conclusion, rape on college campus is a very serious,
growing issue that should be put into consideration to anyone that is going
into college
Cites
News, CBS. “The Case of Beckett Brennan.” CBS
News, CBS Interactive, 4 May 2011, www.cbsnews.com/news/the-case-of-beckett-brennan/4/.
David Cantor, Bonnie Fisher. “Campus Sexual
Violence: Statistics.” Campus Sexual Violence: Statistics | RAINN, www.rainn.org/statistics/campus-sexual-violence.
Kamenetz, Anya. “The
History of Campus Sexual Assault.” NPR, NPR, 30 Nov. 2014, www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/11/30/366348383/the-history-of-campus-sexual-assault.
Couric, Katie. “The
Case of Beckett Brennan.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 4 May 2011, www.cbsnews.com/news/the-case-of-beckett-brennan/.
GERBER, HESTIE. “10 Most Common Traits of
Potential Serial Killers.” Listverse, 22 July 2014,
listverse.com/2013/01/02/10-most-common-traits-of-potential-serial-killers/.
“Campus
Sexual Violence: Statistics.” Campus Sexual Violence: Statistics |
RAINN, www.rainn.org/statistics/campus-sexual-violence
Tepfer,
Daniel. “False College Rape Case Set for Trial.” Connecticut Post,
Connecticut Post, 1 May 2018, www.ctpost.com/local/article/False-college-rape-case-set-for-trial-12878518.php.
No comments:
Post a Comment