I've been reading countless articles about the Stanford freshman who raped an unconscious woman. It's heartbreaking, to say the least. An innocent girl has been traumatized forever while her attacker gets a slap on the wrist. But I had a lot of questions as read over different articles, the main one being: why does this keep happening?
I have one critique of the women's movement that I think applies here. What's the solution? There is clearly a problem in our colleges and universities that has allowed these types of incidents to occur, but I have yet to hear a realistic solution to fix it. I want to share a personal anecdote that I think exemplifies my viewpoint. My dad is a mechanic and has taught me a lot of things about cars and working with my hands in general. Mechanics have two basic tasks they need to complete before they return your car. First, they must diagnose the problem. Your car doesn't turn over when you turn the key, why? Figuring out your problem is 50% of the job and makes fixing it much easier. The second part is finding a solution to the problem. Perhaps the most valuable lesson he taught me was how to fix almost anything: by breaking a problem into its smallest parts, figuring out how it's supposed to work properly and then trying to fix the broken parts.
Apply this to campus sexual assaults. We know young men are assaulting women and getting away with it, but why? Simply telling men not to rape women is not enough. I believe the problem is much deeper, and tied to a host of other problems plaguing women. I just want to say, however, this is my opinion; opinions can be wrong. If you think I'm wrong, tell me why; change my mind.
Women have been relegated through most of history to the status of second-class citizens. I think this had to do with the biological differences between the sexes. Men fought wars, women raised children. But now, not every man fights wars and not every woman gives birth. Infant formula exists now, so women don't have to exclusively nurse babies and can build their own careers. By all accounts, women are just as capable as men.
Another related attitude towards women is their place as sexual objects. As a result of their second-class status, women were also considered sexual objects. Again, we know today that this simply is not true. But women are still treated as if they are. This idea comes from the media.
On TV and in movies, women are portrayed as objects of sexual desire. In advertisements, women are highly sexualized. Walk into Victoria's Secret and the only thing celebrated about women is their bodies -- their idealized bodies. The point is, for every person who tells a young boy that women are their equals and should be treated with respect, a thousand people are telling them the opposite. Boys are taught, subconsciously, to lust after women. Women in turn are taught, subconsciously, to be the object of men's desires. Through advertisements, digital media and social media, these ideas are taught to our youth. The real kicker, the thing that ties everything together, is the movies and TV shows that show college as a place where everyone has sex and women just fall over for men.
When a young man sees these images his entire life and then gets to the real world and finds out women aren't lining up to sleep with him, that's when girls get taken advantage of.
Stop oversexualizing women, and sexual assaults will disappear. Stores like Victoria's Secret and Forever 21, movies like American Pie and shows like Blue Mountain State do just that. We cannot changes people's minds overnight. Simply saying something is wrong will not do anything. Instead of pointing out the problem, point out the solution.
