Summary Of Fraternities And Collegiate Rape Culture

In 2015, Brock Turner, a student from Stanford, sexually assaulted a young woman on campus. Turner claimed that “his actions [were] the product of a culture of drinking, peer pressure and ‘sexual promiscuity’’ which led him to having 6 months in jail on Judge Persky’s ruling. The aftermath of the case, Stanford University, according to Erik Ortiz, “banned hard liquor at all on campus parties; [however], beer and wine are still allowed”, meaning that Stanford made minor changes to address future problems and had little action on the topic. College should focus on sexual assault on campus by enforcing punishment, passing more policies, and learning to ignore their image to reduce the number of rape cases on campus.

1. How have your own attitudes and beliefs been influenced by participating in this petition? What did you learn about diversity from your research as well as from those you worked in the past on similar projects? Give specific examples. My participation in the “Remove Judge Aaron Persky from the Bench For Decision in Brock Turner rape case” petition has influenced my attitudes and beliefs towards this matter in both good and bad ways.

One of the biggest problems the colleges were facing, were they did not want to prosecute, or handle a case if it deals with a student athlete. Although rape is rape, most campuses would investigate the athlete after the season was over in order to protect the school’s sport image. One example of a school not bringing justice for the victim, was a young lady named Erica Kinsman who went to Florida State University and was raped by the star football player. The police had the tested Erica, but when it came time to test her rapist they waited until they football team had won the game. Even after the game was over they still believe there was not enough evidence to say he did it.

While the laws that govern rape have changed dramatically since the 19th century, the general premise of rape hasn’t. Men are still using the same 200 year old tactics to rape and dominate women. They are exploiting close relationships for an easier rape. Men continue to belittle women by convincing them that they are dependent upon men in order to survive. High ranking individuals still use their economic and social power against women of lower status to discredit their accusations.

According to Card, a continued explanation of what makes an institution so, is that it “offers incentives sufficient to motivate individuals” (101). Aside from the rapists’ personal motives for committing the crime, there are also a few notable societal advantages. Because certain behaviors are “guided and evaluated by its norms,” it should be taken into consideration how rapists are sympathized with for having psychological issues that are not actually there. From this, one can only deduce that throughout all of this, the patriarchal nature of society is disallowing women to have any sort of significant power within the community. Within her writing, Card brings up the concept of “sexual politics,” which can be defined as “social norms” that “create and define” the dispersal of power “between members of the sexes” (100).

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. In the film it states that there are less than 8% of men in college that commit more than 90% of sexual assaults. This indicates that because

Dorothy Siegel’s argument in the essay “What Is Behind the Growth of Violence on College Campuses?” is persuasive. Siegel persuades the reader by presenting her points and validating them with facts and statistics. One of the strongest aspects of the argument is that contrary to popular belief, students are committing a majority of the crimes that take place on college campuses; the students “themselves may become the assailants”, not persons from outside of the campus. She further supported this by pointing out that students tend to know their attackers. Another strong aspect of her argument is that campus violence is due to substance abuse.

Carone attempts to inform readers on the realities of life as a student actively involved in a fraternity. Through strong language, it is evident that Carone is passionate about the issues of sexual assault. In the article, Carone mentions a typical fraternity environment which can cause cases of sexual assault to go unreported. Casual sex, drugs, and alcohol are common in fraternities, and those who do report are often shut down by other members. Carone talks about several cases to show that many assault cases happen in a similar fashion, usually when the subject is intoxicated.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Violence Against Women Act (“VAWA”), which funded rape investigations and prosecutions, imposed mandatory sentences on rapists and penalized prosecutors who did not follow standard operating procedures on certain rape cases (Nanos, E., 2015). President Clinton’s successor’s Presidents Bush and Obama, both renewed VAWA during their time in office. Following VAWA, the Clery Act helped colleges fight university campus violence, and in 2013, Congress passed an amendment called the Campus SaVE Act. In July of 2015 Rep. Matt Salmon introduced to the House of Representative the Safe Campus Act (Nanos, 2015).

The students four years after high school mark the moment in life where students become independent and free. Because of the freedom, college students are more suspectiblento impetuous actions like drinking, doing drugs, and even commuting sexual assault. Sexual assault on campus has been a huge topic that has been discussed in the country and “colleges have done little to stop violence in their campus” (Dick, Ziering). In 2015, Brock Turner, a student from Stanford, sexually assaulted a young woman on campus. Turner claimed that because he was drunk, was with friends, and saw a “promiscuous” female students, that pressured him to collimating such a heinous crime.

Starting college is already a very scary time for most students, and I want to make the fear of rape

Predictors of Sexual Assault While In College Sexual assault on campus is an important public health concern and public safety concern which has been becoming an important topic on colleges and universities across the country. According to a special report conducted by U.S. Department of Justice (2014), the Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females, 1995-2013 (U.S. Department of Justice 2014) found that 20% of student victims reported a rape or sexual assault to the police during their time in college. Due to stigma of sexual assault and fear of retaliation we know that significant percentage of individuals never report their sexual assault, and other analyses have victimization reports ranging from 35% to a high of 56%

Sexual assaults on campuses have received more attention than in the past, because of an increased number of incidents occurring. Eliminating these assaults is nearly impossible, although with the help of society, individual strategies, and the involvement of the universities, we can cut down the number of victims dramatically. Schools want their campuses to be safe, yet all schools have violence. Every student deserves the right to a safe learning environment. Should schools do more to help prevent sexual assaults on campus or, should more women carry around pepper spray like I do?

The documentary called The Hunting Grounds, had multiple concepts that relate to sociology. Using a sociological perspective, it was very prevalent to see the ways college campuses use patriarchy and gender stratification to keep women who have been sexually assaulted on campus from disclosing information or even getting help about these issues. Through the discrimination against women at these gender institutions the women formed a Feminist movement to bring awareness and help to the victims on campuses all around the world and to stop the assaults from reoccurring. The Hunting Grounds is a documentary that reveals the untold stories of women on college campuses and how these women have fought to have their voice heard about sexual assault on campuses. Sexual assault and rape on campuses has always been a major problem for colleges all over the world yet very little has been done to protect the students.

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.