Slut Walks are just the beginning to societal change
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Slut: a word that has garnered a strong negative connotation and public uproar following 2011 when a Toronto police officer suggested to York University students to avoid rape, “women should avoid dressing like sluts.”
Why does someone’s outfit determine the justification of an act of sexual, physical and emotional violence? A woman wearing a snowsuit and a woman wearing a tube top and mini skirt deserve the same sexual standard: respect and consent.
Campuses across the country have since adopted the notion of SlutWalks to combat negative statements that suggest the clothing women wear base a standard of their consent to sex.
Programs and organizations on college campuses work to ensure a safe and trusting environment for students, but when 1 in every 5 women and one in every 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college and only less than 10 percent of victims report assaults, the victims are in need of more help.
SlutWalks are just a part of a large societal change that needs to occur to better the lives of victims and to ensure that sexual assault is not considered ordinary. Films like “The Hunting Ground,” expose the failure of college administrations to adequately handle reports of sexual assaults.
Most colleges and universities are required to investigate and judge reports of sexual violence without the immediate involvement of law enforcement. This is a small piece of a fragile and broken system that is less capable of stopping and punishing perpetrators and subsequently further hurting victims.
When the university finds campus perpetrators guilty, punishment generally results in only expulsion, expressing the idea college campuses are more lenient to the same serious and heinous crimes committed a foot off campus. Sexual assaults on campus should be treated to the fullest extent of the law to better protect students.
The Rape, Incest and Abuse National Network wrote to the White House, “It would never occur to anyone to leave the adjudication of a murder in the hands of a school’s internal judicial process. Why, then, is it not only common, but expected, for them to do so when it comes to sexual assault?”
In the past five years, movements on college campuses, aided by social media campaigns, are working to change the connotation of the word “slut” while also advocating for sexual assault awareness and an end to slut shaming. Positive changes are being made, but rapes and reports of assault are still happening on university campuses.
It is time to take away the security of lawful protection away from student perpetrators and put the safety and lawful protection in the rightful hands of the student victims.
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Aristotle Bean • Apr 22, 2016 at 1:14 am
There’s a lesson to be learned here: Don’t write an opinion unless you’re willing to give 5 minutes to research it.
Are American college campuses “rape cultures”? Are they dangerous places where sexual assaults against women are happening at an alarming rate?
According to many gender activists, academics and politicians, the answer is “Yes.”
This student newspaper has even published this claim in the past.
Vice-President Joe Biden said in 2014: “We know the numbers. 1-in-5 of every one of those young women who is dropped off for that first day of school, before they finish school, will be assaulted, will be assaulted in her college years.”
Let’s take a closer look at the Vice-President’s claim.
Rape is a horrific crime. Rapists are rightfully despised. We have strict laws against sexual assault that everyone wants to see enforced. But while rape is certainly a very serious problem, there is simply no evidence of a national campus rape epidemic.
And there is certainly no evidence that sexual violence is a cultural norm in 21st century America.
In fact, rates of rape in the U.S. are very low, and they have been declining for decades. Why would it be any different on a college campus?
Where, then, does the 1-in-5 rate that Biden cites come from?
Well, it turns out that it comes from a study conducted over the internet at two large universities, one in the midwest and one in the south.
The survey was anonymous.
No one’s claims were verified.
Terms were not clearly defined.
In round numbers, a total of 5,000 women participated. Based on their responses, the authors, not the participants, determined that 1,000 had been victims of “some type” of “non-consensual or unwanted sexual contact.”
And, Voila! From one very vaguely worded unscientific survey, we suddenly arrive at a “rape culture” and it’s “on all college campuses.”
Tellingly, the study’s authors have since explicitly stated that it’s inappropriate to use their survey to make that claim.
But it hasn’t stopped gender activists, virtue-signaling politicians and feminists, and many in the media.
Much more comprehensive data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, or BJS, estimates that about 1-in-52.6 college women will be victims of rape or sexual assault over the course of 4 years.
That’s far too many, but it’s a long way from 1-in-5.
The same BJS data also reveal that women in college are safer from rape than college-aged women who are not enrolled in college.
But the truth doesn’t serve the purposes of the feminist activists or the vote-seeking politicians. Lies work much better. And the 1-in-5 claim is tantamount to a lie.
Here are just a few examples of what this lie has wrought:
At Scripps College, Pulitzer Prize commentator George Will was disinvited from giving a speech. The reason? He had dared to question the “rape culture” mantra in a column he wrote.
At the all-woman Wellesley College, students demanded that the administration remove a campus sculpture of a sleepwalking man wearing only underpants.. Why? Because the image of a nearly naked male could trigger memories of sexual assault for victims.
According to Harvard Law Professor Jeannie Suk, students now ask teachers not to include questions about rape law on exams for fear that such disturbing questions might cause them to perform less well.
And at Brown University, students were so traumatized by a debate on the subject of campus sexual assault, that activists organized a “safe room”, equipped with coloring books, Playdoh, calming music and video of frolicking puppies.
No less absurd is the attempts by colleges and legislatures to cure this non-existent plague.
In California and New York, students now have to live by so-called “affirmative consent” laws. The California law says that affirmative consent by all parties must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity. While the New York law says that silence or lack of resistance in and of itself does not demonstrate consent.
Confused? Pity the poor college students who have to figure this out. If it wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable. But it’s not funny to a growing number of young men who find themselves accused of sexual assault, public shamed, and then brought before college judicial panels that are guided by rape culture theory. In these cases, due process is an afterthought.
It’s guilty BECAUSE accused. And universities are paying out large 7-figure settlements to falsely accused young men.
But here’s the best way to prove that the 1-in-5 number is phony: Ask yourself this question. Would you send your daughter to a place for 4 years where there was a 20% chance she would be raped or sexually assaulted?
Of course not. Good rarely if ever comes from lies. The 1-in-5 rape culture lie is no exception.