In Zoë Heller’s Rape on the Campus, She advocates how sexual assault happens often on campuses, and that it needs to be significantly more addressed; as it is scarce for women to bring the college’s attention to the assault. Heller asserts that, “20 percent of women are sexually assaulted during their time at college and as few as 5 percent of these assaults are ever reported to police” (185). Noting that ninety-five percent of sexual assault cases are dealt by the college, colleges can take advantage and handle its reputation by outputting false information to cover any potential negative reputation. While colleges are forced to obey the rules of title IX, I believe this is an inadequate effort to remove bias teachers and workers from colleges.
Most teenagers complain about not having enough freedom. To be able to sit and eat ice cream out of the box at ten in the morning for breakfast or blast their favorite music as loud as possible. For most, college provides that, opening its campus to their students with gates of gold granting young adults the freedom that they dream about. Unfortunately, a new danger that once was cloaked from young minds is being revealed, making this freedom less obtainable. That danger is rape.
Through gender socialization women are told to stay quiet when it comes to rape and those women are blamed for what happened to them. The patriarchy that still is very prevalent in the college systems today have allowed for this behavior. Gender stratification has allowed for men to get away with their crimes and has forced women to remain silent. When women do speak up they are discriminated against and are called radical feminist. Many feminist movements have started to bring awareness to this issue and are trying to make the world we live in more just for the women who are struggling to have their voice be heard. Women are just fighting for equality and to be heard. The first step is to listen and to act. Can you imagine a time when young women entering into college did not have to fear about sexual assault and rape on campuses? That is a time we all should work towards and strive to
For my campus immersion activity, I watched the movie The Hunting Ground. This movie is a documentary based on college students and their struggles they have encountered about begin sexually assaulted on their campus. Throughout this movie, I found myself almost in tears, or clenching my blanket so tight because it was so difficult and frustrating to hear these victim’s stories and how they almost always never received the help they were hoping for from their own universities. Hearing statistics repeatedly mentioned about how colleges could have over 200 reported sexual assaults, but have only 1 expulsion, or only have 10 suspensions, is completely ridiculous and inconceivable. What is it going to take for these colleges to step up and help these victims and hold the assailants accountable?
In society and college campuses, sexual assault occurs quite frequently. According to an estimation one third of women experience a forced sexual experience at least once in their life and most of the time it occurs in colleges. Men have also been reported to be victim of sexual assaults mostly by other men. Most of the time the sexual assault is planned and perpetrated by a third person, who is known to the victim of incident. Drug and alcohol use play role in this issue and contribute to the problem as most of the time the victim and perpetrators are under the effect of alcohol or any other drug during the incident. It looks scary how vulnerable the survivor can be at the time of assault. However, as long as the matter of violence is associated, the students at college campuses are safer than their non-college mates. Some training and education has been administrated to the students for awareness about the violence and sexual assaults. Even, with increased training and education, most of the college campuses have much longer way to go for decreasing the intensity and number of assaults and the incidents have immense negative impact on the society and people around us.
One out of five females in the United States are sexually assaulted by a male at some point in their lifetime (Hildebrand & Najdowski, 2015, p. 1059) and college aged females are four times more likely to be a victim of rape than any other age group (Burnett et al.,
The United States is facing a growing problem that shows no signs of slowing: sexual assaults on college campuses. Possible reasons for this epidemic are explained by Janet Napolitano, the current president of the University of California. She describes that “young adults live independently and in close proximity to one another for the first time” while attending college (Napolitano 387). The college setting provides students with opportunities to take advantage of one another. As a result, sexual assaults have become an issue across universities in the United States. Sexual assaults are a problem because they can have lasting effects on victims. It is the job of both the government and colleges to find solutions to the problem, by preventing
Which campus will be next? It is not a question of it, but when and where? College is the first time students get to spend time without parental guidance. In fact, college is a place where many students learn about themselves, but are they safe? Campuses are filled with all kinds of students, including different ages. Unfortunately, not every student will have a positive mindset or respect of others. Nowadays, the most assaults happen on a college campus and this is a serious issue that can be prevented. Research claims that, “Eighteen percent experienced an attempted and/or completed sexual assault since entering college.” (NSVRC) On an average, that is one in five students worldwide, but we can make those numbers decrease greatly with a
In the book, Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in College Town, by Jon Krakauer, the reader delves into how rape and sexual assault are treated in the town of Missoula, and the University of Montana. As the reader, we are informed on how the university, the police department, the district attorney’s office, and the community reacted to these rape and sexual assault allegations. We see how the criminal justice system has failed the victims, and are forced to live with what happened to them, while their assailants are free of any burden. The law is set in place to protect people from victimization, but when the men, in this book, are not legally held accountable, then any woman, or man, is more susceptible to victimization. It is interesting
One in five women and one in sixteen men are sexually assaulted while in college. 63% of sexual assaults are not reported to police and only about 2 to 10% of reports are found to be false. In Jon Krakauer’s book: Missoula, Rape and the Justice System in a College Town. Krakauer focuses on the many rapes that occur on the college campus in Missoula. Most of the rapes that happen on college campuses are done by men, but to say all men are rapists is unjust and sexist.
The Hunting Ground is a documentary film that captures students who have been sexually assaulted at their college campus. This documentary specifically focuses on two former University of North Carolina students, Andrea Pino and Annie Clark. They both share the same story of being raped on UNC campus. Throughout this documentary, viewers learn that many sexual assault cases happen on college campuses. However, many of these cases are often ignored by college administrators because universities want to keep rape statistics low and they have an financial incentive to do so.
They tend to seek help in their campus administrators and they do not provide resources, support that will help the victims, instead, they ask blaming questions. The administrator is more interested in what the victim was wearing and how drunk they were. Victim blaming is when a victim of a crime is held responsible or blamed for the harm being committed. These victims are quickly blamed for their offender's actions and live in fear of running into their offender again on campus. Approximately about 88% of women do not report; victim blaming has caused a silent effect in which women are embarrassed by reporting. Colleges are protecting their public record and do not wish to affect their brand be publicly admitting the high rates of sexual assaults. The documentary focused on a student attending Harvard Law School and the administrators insisted that the female victim should remain silent and avoid spreading the incident around. They asked questions such as, "Did you give him the wrong message, why did you choose not to fight back". Victim blaming is presented when the administrators are more interested in what the victim did wrong rather than what the offender's actions
In their opinion piece published in the New York Times, Miriam Gleckman-Krut and Nicole Bedera, two students from University of Michigan, claim that students being accused of sexual assault on-campus should not be the ones providing the definition of sexual assault because more victims will stay silent. Their article tackles the research question “how does allowing the accused to define sexual assault affect the victim?”. The piece was written in response to Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, who claimed that former President Obama’s policies on on-campus rape stripped the accused of their liberties because less evidence was required from the victims, who often struggle to create concreate evidence due to trauma or difficulty remembering.
Drugs and alcohol seen to coexist on college campuses since colleges are major targets for dealers and are well known for parties. In a survey of women, fifty one percent of them had stated to being raped since coming to the campus (Hollis, Michael).When a women has experienced a sexual assault they tend to avoid telling the police or officials because of self blame and or fear of the case going to court and being looked down upon. Sexual assault is a difficult topic to speak about and more so when the officials are not very understanding. Women are sometimes even terrified to speak up about their assault because of what people might think of them and what people might ask such as “What were you wearing?” “Were you drinking last night?” and probably one of the worst is “You were asking for it” all of this reduces the likelihood that they will speak up. And the ones that do, speak up very rarely get the justice that they deserve.This is a huge problem because along with these overwhelming statistics women are more likely to experience psychological disorders such as Depression and PTSD, which then causes them to drop out of schooling (Streng, Tara). This being the case colleges should offer more methods of help to those that have experience with sexual assault and provide accessible prevention methods or
Sexual assault is complex, guileful and ubiquitous. The criminal justice system is expected to deliver a sense that justice has been done, yet its current response is inadequate for the large majority of sexual assault victims. Victims of sexual assault have historically been met with denial and disbelief, with society failing to develop an adequate response to a crime. In recent decades, hard won improvements - called for by reformers and feminists, and implemented by well-intentioned governments - have seen sexual assault taken more seriously in legal and political arenas alike. Investigation, prosecution and court procedures have improved; specialization has been encouraged; and victims have been provided with fairer treatment and additional