Did you see the rape facts on the front page of Tuesday’s paper?
“One out of four college women will be sexually assaulted before graduation.”
“Rape is one of the few offenses where the victim is nearly always blamed for it happening.”
Did they shock you?
Perhaps. But many of us have heard them before. As jarring as these facts are, we often take the fact of rape for granted. It will always be a part of society, we think, so what can we do to change that?
The events in Sexual Assault Awareness this month include the showing of “Boys Don’t Cry” on Thursday and the 22nd annual “Take Back the Night” on May 18. While these are obviously worthwhile activities, there is one question: After years of having these statistics in our face, of exposing the victims of sexual assault, of trying to take back the night, why is rape still so prevalent in our society?
The answer isn’t an easy one. For one thing, even critics are torn over whether rape is an issue of biology, power or sex. What can’t be argued, however, is the sheer magnitude of cases. Sexual assault was the most rapidly growing violent crime in the United States in 1995, according to the American Medical Association. But if anti-rape messages have been out in society since the women’s movement in the 1970s and have educated a full generation of men and women, then why haven’t the number of rape cases subsided?
It seems awkwardly funny that the Worker Rights Consortium — that deals with the fate of people in other countries — attracts more passion on this campus than rape, which deals with the plight of women in our own country. It’s not that the WRC issue isn’t worthy, but why doesn’t the continual degradation of women in our culture get as much or more attention?
It’s almost as if people have heard the statistics so often that the campaign against sexual assault isn’t new and powerful any more. But if commercial advertisers know how to concentrate our attention onto such trivial acts as buying this soda or that one, why couldn’t a slick anti-rape campaign renew debate in one of our most significant social problems?
In a very basic way, the issue of rape needs a better public relations campaign. It needs some spark, some event, some rally that will refocus our nation and our campus’s attention onto it. The events we currently support, such as “Take Back the Night,” are clearly necessary and beneficial. However, we need something even bigger to get more people’s attention.
Whether you approved, the shock value of Justice For All’s Genocide Awareness Project got people talking passionately about abortion. The “I Agree with Ryan” campaign sparked debate on Christianity and religious identity. The WRC protests clearly grabbed and focused everyone’s attention on sweatshop labor. Sexual assault prevention needs, requires and deserves the same attention.
One out of every four women on a college campus will be sexually assaulted. If that doesn’t shock you, what will?