Rape on College Campuses by Thalia Chapman

Imagine you are having a great night at the bar with your friends in your college town and you meet a nice guy. You start to let loose and have a good time. The drinks are flowing and the energy is great, until your gut stops you right in your track. You are overwhelmed with a sense of insecurity. You feel that something is off, his eyes start piercing through your clothes and suddenly you are concerned for your safety. You start to lose control over yourself and then you black out, you wake up, groggy, to the sound of a man over you and you can't even get out the word, "stop". Male and female undergraduate students are at risk, about 23.1% of females and 5.4% of males experience rape or physical assault through physical force, violence, or incapacitation (Rainn). There are solutions to fighting the rape epidemic on college campuses, are you going to be a part of this solution?

Rape on college campuses has been in the eyes of the media since the 1950’s. In 1957, sociologist, Eugene Kanin, published on of the first studies on campus sexual assault called, “Male sex aggression on a university campus”. The studied placed a model where men used secrecy and stigma to pressure and exploit women (Kamentez). In the 1980’s the term “date rape” was conceived by Mary Koss, a psychology professor at the University of Arizona. Over the course of her career she conducted many studies, collecting thousands of stories from campuses around the world. The most interesting data she obtained from self- described perpetrators, was that 7.7% of male students volunteered anonymously that they had engaged in or attempted forced sexual intercourse (Kamentez). The most shocking statistic was that almost none considered it to be a crime. Unfortunately, numbers have grown to about 11% self- proclaimed perpetrators. Traditional campus culture allows for three “primary drivers” that enable a small minority of men to offend and get away with, like, high alcohol consumption, peer pressure amongst young men, and personal gain from meaningless sex. Today, with the help of student activists and the federal government awareness for this serious issue are on the rise.

Sexual assault is such an underrated epidemic, when it shouldn’t be. The effects of assault on the victim last a life time. Sexual assault on college campuses should be dealt with accordingly instead of swept under the rug. The reason most cases of sexual assault go uninvestigated is because most victims are afraid to admit it. The general awareness that even if a victim speaks doesn’t necessarily mean that their attacker will be reprimanded is a sad truth. There need to more steps taken to protect victims. Victims suffer from mental health crises after something as invasive as sexual assault. Not only is this social effect part of the inner circle, it also becomes a national problem. Sexual assault can result in mental health problems, pregnancy, STDs, which then turn into money for treating these conditions. Most female victims, who are uninsured and then sexually assaulted with the result of pregnancy are suddenly reliant upon Medicaid. The federal government could be doing more to teach students about consent and the rights and wrongs of sex. They could be putting their money towards preventing cases of sexual assault instead putting money towards treating victims, because at that point it’s too late.

The most memorable and defining cases for victims across the nation, was the Brock Turner case. This was not only pivotal because the attacker received consequences for his actions, but for the fact that white male was convicted of a crime he actually committed. Turner was accused of raping his victim “Emily Doe” while she was unconscious, behind a dumpster, and then leaving her to suffer. Although there were many complaints about such a lenient sentence, it was a step in the right direction to show that victims could speak out and put their attacker behind bars (Simon). One of the most recent and scandalous cases, deals with one of the most prestigious football schools in America, Baylor University. A federal lawsuit against Baylor University accused football players of drugging and gang-raping young women as a form of hazing or bonding ritual and the universities inability to investigate the major accusations. Two victims by the anonymous names of Jane and Emily Doe both accused an upwards of 30 players total for drugging and gang-raping them (Domonoske). The biggest part of the scandal isn’t the fact of assault, it’s how the university swept the accusations under the rug and ignored the victims. Punishment for the university included firing the head coach with tenure due to his knowledge of the activities his players were associating with and any other football faculty involved. With the slow but gradual advances towards correcting this epidemic more things could be changed. The federal government needs to play an active role in education on consent because clearly the one hour seminar colleges give at freshmen orientation aren’t doing enough.

          Solutions could include better forms of illuminating the problem. Freshmen orientations could go deeper in depth about the consequences of sexual assault, like expulsions, a permanent criminal record, they need to emphasize how much it could ruin a life. One way this epidemic is being short-sighted is by the type of people committing the crime, white males. White males are notoriously known for committing the same crime as a minority and getting a lesser sentence, even in the event that a minority’s crime was less serious they still get harsher punishments. They’re raised knowing no matter what they do they will never get into that much of trouble. But in reality, solutions to this problem doesn’t exist until the human psyche, mostly the male psyche, stops believing that women are objects. Women are not an opportunity to boost their “manliness”. Women are to be respected and treated as an equal. Women are the backbone to men’s existence. The absurdity to this epidemic is that some people, men, think it is okay to take advantage of a woman and that no answer does not necessarily mean no.

            Until the male psyche evolves into a better way of thinking to treat women, this epidemic will only continue to get worse. There is also absurdity behind coming forward, because coming forward does not always protect the victim, most of the time it puts them in an unwanted spotlight. People can further slander their reputations. Everyone and anyone is entitled to a night out on the town after a long week of school and work, but it is not okay for a woman to go out and be made uncomfortable in her environment by an over powering male figure. There is absurdity in how authority figures handle rape. They start by victimizing the victim more, asking them what they were wearing and what they were doing the night or day of the attack. It does not matter what she was wearing or what she was doing. A woman could be naked and no one would have permission to touch her unless she granted them that permission.

            It is a sad and unfortunate truth that women everywhere have to raise their daughters to be conservative and modest to protect themselves. They might never get to be who they really are because the fear the over-powering male psyche as presented itself over women in the past, present, and future. I hate that I have to live in a world where I’ll have to raise my daughters to fear any strange man who pursues them because she’ll never know his true intentions. A life lived in fear is not a life worth living, because it’s not really living at all.

           

  

Works Cited

RAINN. “Campus Sexual Violence: Statistics.” RAINN, www.rainn.org/statistics/campus-sexual-violence.

Kamentez, Anya. “The History of Campus Sexual Assault.” NprEd, 30 Nov. 2014, www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/11/30/366348383/the-history-of-campus-sexual-assault.

Domonoske, Camila. “Lawsuit Alleges Baylor Players Gang-Raped Women As 'Bonding Experience'.” NPR, NPR, 17 May 2017, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/17/528804172/new-lawsuit-alleges-baylor-players-gang-raped-women-as-bonding-experience.

Domonoske, Camila. “Lawsuit Alleges Baylor Players Gang-Raped Women As 'Bonding Experience'.” NPR, NPR, 17 May 2017, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/17/528804172/new-lawsuit-alleges-baylor-players-gang-raped-women-as-bonding-experience.

Simon, Scott. “Brock Turner.” NPR, NPR, 24 Feb. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/02/24/588500120/on-brock-turner-and-the-campaign-to-recall-the-judge-in-the-case.