One in four college women will survive rape or an attempt before graduation. One in six women will be raped before reaching adulthood. Women of color are victimized at higher rates than white women; the same goes for queer victims versus non-queer. I have no illusions that these numbers are far lower than they should be, as only 40 percent of rapes are reported to the police. The chances of a rapist being arrested, prosecuted, sentenced or imprisoned are considerably low. Women know their rapists 38 percent of the time.
What’s more, even though false accusations of rape only account for 2-8 percent of all reports – the same, I might add, as any other crime – around half of all people think women are lying when they admit they were raped. If you’re a male victim of rape, every misogynistic attitude that contributes to the above is magnified, with an extra dose of misogyny-fueled humiliation for being feminized.
Somehow I don’t think rape prevention panties, blue emergency boxes and not drinking are doing any good. There’s no value in the “treat women like princesses” line, either; it encourages the attitude that if women step outside those bounds of respectable behavior, they’re fair game for sexual assault. The burden of responsibility doesn’t belong to women. It belongs to the people that violate them. I don’t know how many times it can be said or how many different ways we can say it: People aren’t responsible for someone raping them. It happens regardless of what someone is wearing, how they’re acting, or what they’re saying. We must stop telling women how they can stop being raped, and start telling people how they can stop raping others.
For starters, don’t rape people. It’s as simple as not responding with suspicion and disbelief when a woman confides that she was raped. It’s as easy as not asking what “really” happened or what she was doing at the time. It’s as easy as never saying “just get over it.” It’s as easy as not saying how ridiculous it is that a man was raped. It’s not blaming people for someone else’s crime, even in these most casual of ways. It’s not sympathizing with the rapist – they had potential; you’re ruining his career; they cried in court during their sentencing, so can’t we move on? It’s calling people out when they say that they wish they hadn’t published the video online – not that they regret raping someone.
Is it any wonder why there’s so much stigma surrounding sexual assault? Current UA policy makes it difficult to report instances of it. The administration is most likely to ignore it altogether; policy encourages the survivor to make amends with their rapist before considering taking legal action. I have a team working to combat rape culture on campus: more compassion for survivors, and no mercy for rapists.
Meanwhile, the filmmakers behind “Invisible War,” a documentary on sexual violence in the military, are working on a similar project focusing on campus sexual assault – survivors’ emotional and psychological fallout, ways campus communities can better support them, and reducing the instances of assault on campus. In a letter I received, they mentioned that they want “to speak off the record for research purposes with campus assault survivors. All matters discussed would be kept confidential,” and they can be contacted at [email protected].
Rape culture is present in every aspect of our lives, but it doesn’t have to be. We need to support survivors; we can start by targeting attitudes and structures in place that give people free reign to violate someone else.
Samaria Johnson is a junior majoring in history. Her column runs biweekly.
