You're walking down the street, minding your own business. Maybe you're coming home from work. Maybe you're heading to a friend's house. Maybe you're a little drunk. Maybe you're a little too sober. Maybe you're wearing heels. Maybe your arms are covered in frumpy plaid. Maybe your hair it long. Maybe your hair is short. Maybe you're tall with legs that stretch on for days. Maybe you're short with a ski slope nose like a fairy.
But the point is, that none of these things matter. To your sexual predator, you are a target, and nothing about what you look like, who you are, or what's between your legs matter.
People tend to think about sexual violence as something that couldn't happen to them. That thing that you read about in the news that belongs to a realm of fantasy. Someone else's problem.
But the truth is, sexual violence effects everyone, in some way. It isn't someone else's problem. It's everyone's. The truth is, that one in five women will be raped at some point in her life. And one in seventy five men. The truth is, one in ten women will be raped by their partner. The truth is, rape costs the United States more money than any other crime. The truth is that one in five women and one in sixteen men will be raped on a college campus. The truth is, that sexual violence is happening all around us, but for some reason, we sweep it under a rug and pretend it doesn't exist.
That it's someone else's problem.
And though sexual violence is intrusive and damning in just about every aspect of life, the slice of the pie chart that I'd like to focus on in this article is sexual violence on college campuses.
When entering college, no person arranges their sheets wondering if they will be held down there and forced to perform. No person places their rug and wonders if it will eventually be stained with their blood. But the plain fact is that we, as a society, have normalized the sexual atrocities that occur on our college campuses. Though the statistics are shocking and countless victims have come forward to share their experiences, for some reason, sexual assault policies just don't find their way into school handbooks.
And if you don't quite believe me, yet, consider the fact that nearly 95 percent of college rapes go unreported. That sexual assault cases are rarely concluded in ways that favor the victim. That there are entire seminars dedicated to teaching girls to be careful but not a single one that actively teaches men not to be predators. That assault victims are often erased and their predators are rarely punished.
The fact of the matter, is that I am only twenty but I have heard and seen things from boys my age that I thought only happened in movies. I've heard them talk about women, women like their mothers and their future daughters, like they're objects to be possessed. I've been asked why I'm not smiling and called a bitch in the same breath. And before you tell me that these are isolated incidents, let me argue that every women I have encountered in my brief time at school has had the same terrifying story. Stories about boys, boys the same age of them, using their words and hands like daggers and guns.
I guess what I'm saying is that among the things that I signed up for, four years of having to watch my back when I'm walking back to my dorm was not one of them. No student should have to dedicate even a fraction of their time wondering if they will make it back to their room safely or if that night is the night that they become a number. We need to rethink the way we handle sexual violence on college campuses because it's always someone else's problem until it happens to you. These stories don't just play on movie screens. They're playing in the minds of nearly every woman around you.
