If you hadn’t heard already, Brock Turner was recently released from prison after serving a mere three months of his six-month sentence, because he had "good behavior." He is no longer allowed back on Stanford's campus, but that is a minor punishment compared to what his victim has to live with.
His case has caused a lot of bad rap for Stanford University, so due to this, they have changed some of their policies. They have now banned hard alcohol from their parties, and are encouraging students to be educated on alcohol and its effects, and how to be more safe with it. They even went so far as to post a page attached to their website called Female Bodies and Alcohol, which was a sexist page written about why women get drunk faster and become more susceptible to rape when under the influence of alcohol. After much backlash, it was taken down.
Though the content of their webpages are probably true, and though college students ought to be properly educated on the dangers and effects of alcohol, this does not solve the problem. Rapists don’t need to be taught how to handle their alcohol, rapists need to be taught not to rape. I'm sorry, Brock Turner, but alcohol is no excuse for sexual violence.
Although the topic of alcohol is a heavily debated one, I think we should all be able to agree on this: it is sickening that when a woman of legal age so chooses to consume or not consume alcohol, her choice is too often influenced by the fear of her next drink leading to her getting raped.
If you are a young woman like myself, you probably hear these phrases often:
“Oh, you shouldn’t wear that, you’ll draw too much attention.”
“You should really carry pepper spray on you wherever you go.”
“It’s not safe for you to be out alone at night.”
“If I were you, I would download one of those safety apps—just in case.”
I am so sick and tired of hearing what I need to do to not be raped. I understand it is important and unfortunately necessary to take these precautions, but teaching a girl how to not get raped is really just teaching her how to have the next girl be the one that gets raped instead of her.
Instead of putting all of our emphasis on teaching girls how to not get raped, let's put our emphasis on teaching men not to rape.
(My first article about the Brock Turner case can be found here.)
