Here’s the thing: statistics say that one in five women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. If you narrow it down to women on a college campus, it becomes one in four. That means if I am sitting in a class with twenty female peers, five of us will likely be sexually assaulted before walking across the stage at our graduation. Yes, I know we’ve all heard it before. At orientation, they ‘teach’ us the dangers of alcohol and tell us never to walk alone at night. As women, we are told our whole lives “Never set your drink down at a party” and “always walk with your keys in your hand in case someone tries to attack you.” As an eighteenth birthday present, I was given mace. I’m not here to talk to you about how women are taught “Don’t get raped” as if it’s their fault though, I’m here to talk to you about Brock Turner and his father.

In case you haven’t heard, Brock Turner is first and foremost a rapist. He was found on top of a not only unconscious, but unresponsive woman. His defense was that he was drunk. This man raped a woman and was only sentenced to six months in prison. Brock Turner’s father isn’t helping the righteous indignation sweeping the country. He doesn’t seem to understand that his son raped a woman. Her life is now forever altered because of this. Dan Turner completely disregarded this young woman’s life. Saying fourteen years in prison is a lot to pay for “20 minutes of action” is the most disgusting thing I’ve heard about this. If someone he cared about was raped, do you think he’d still be saying that? No. Sexual violence is truly evil and as Tomi Lahren stated in a video “The evil was already inside your son.”

If you haven’t read her letter yet, please do. It illustrates how strong and brave she is. I’m not going to call her a victim because she is not defined by this. She is not defined by what has been done to her. She is not to blame in any way, shape or form. Brock Turner is to blame. He raped this woman, then he denied it.

It’s time, and has been for a while now, to stop teaching girls not to get raped and instead teach boys not to rape. As long as it’s okay for a man to whistle at me on the street and then call me a stupid bitch for ignoring him, as long as we ask “What were you wearing?” instead of “How can I help?”, we are living in a society that lets ‘boys be boys’. Men have self control. Drunk or not, you have self control. Brock Turner made the conscious decision to rape an unconscious girl and only got six months in prison. The worst part is, Brock Turner isn’t even the worst case scenario. Rapists walk free every day.