“Women aged 18–24 who are enrolled in college are three times more likely than women in general to suffer from sexual violence.”
“Male college aged students are 78 percent more likely than non-students to be a victim of rape and sexual assault.”
“8 percent of all [reported] sexual assaults occur while victim is attending school.”
These statistics, taken from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) website, represent the cold, hard facts of what it’s really like to be a college student, or even just a human being in America. Whether we as a nation like to admit it or not, sexual assault and rape have become extremely problematic epidemics that plague everyone, from children to adults of all ages, races, genders and socioeconomic statuses.
In September of 2014, President Barack Obama launched the “It’s On Us” campaign to “end sexual assault on college campuses.” As he said in his speech at the launch, “An estimated one in five women has been assaulted during her college years … Of those assaults, only 12 percent are reported, and of those reported assaults, only a fraction of the offenders are punished.” The well-intentioned initiative garnered extensive media attention within the first couple of months, with celebrity support, public service announcements to raise awareness and encouragement to pledge and advocate on college campuses across the nation.
The campaign focuses on turning the perception of sexual assault around, specifically concentrating on eliminating the bystander effect by encouraging citizens to step forward in dicey situations to prevent potential sexual assault from happening.
So far, in cases of rape and sexual assault, the questions have always been about what the survivor was wearing, what the survivor was doing, how much the survivor had to drink. The intention of the “It’s On Us” campaign is to turn the interrogation on the perpetrators, and to focus the education on stopping potential rapists from raping rather than using fear tactics to ensure survivors are not in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing while wearing the wrong clothes.
NC State caught on to the movement pretty quickly, with then-Student Body President Rusty Mau publicly pledging to the initiative and reminding fellow students to do the same in his weekly update emails. The university also hosts a Week of Action in November, with awareness events across campus, and educational workshops on awareness and prevention.
What’s lacking is the continuous advocacy and support before and after the Week of Action to remind students that the pledge is not a one-time thing, but rather an ongoing lifestyle choice to do whatever it takes to prevent even just one instance of rape or sexual assault from happening.
Is the initiative enough to create a big enough change on college campuses nationwide? One of the reasons sexual assault and rape are such big problems in this country — especially at colleges and universities — is the perpetuation of victim blaming, and the resulting fear-mongering that stops survivors of rape and sexual assault from reporting these crimes.
The “It’s On Us” campaign is what some would call first-grade-level awareness and proactivity. People sign the pledge and feel good about themselves for having done something constructive. It’s just heavy enough for people to understand, and to agree with — there does need to be a change in the way sexual assault and rape are dealt with. The campaign provides a kind of illusion of positive change; beyond that, however, the initiative lacks the follow-up that such movements require.
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