It was a seriously eye-opening event when I first arrived in the United States back in August and found out about the huge amount of incidences of sexual violence and sexual harassment that occur in this country. The worst thing that could happen to you in the UK, even close to London, is that you might get catcalled a few times, or a guy, who may have had a little too much to drink, starts talking to you at the end of the night, and at that point you are surrounded by a large group of friends, including several males, so it is completely safe.
Here, however, I feel that I have to be really cautious at night, especially as a young, fairly small female. The only times that I am out late at night is when I’m coming back from the library after a long night’s studying, and even then when I am completely sober and in a very safe campus, I try and get home as quickly as possible.
But after getting over this shock, what baffled me the most was the treatment that victims, whether they be female, male, transgender, etc., face. For girls, instead of counselors actually listening to them, the immediate questions that they are faced with are: what were you wearing? Did you have anything to drink, and if so how much? Were you doing anything that could have encouraged them? And probably the worst of all, did you really try to resist them? For boys, often no one believes them, even close family members, asking them how is it even possible to be sexually assaulted as a man? Or that they probably deserved it if it actually did happen. For more stories see here.
25 percent of women, that’s one in five, will be sexually assaulted at some point during their lifetime in the United States alone; and you're asking those victims if they did anything that might have provoked their attacker? No! If a girl says no to someone or is literally drugged so she is incapable of giving any kind of consent, how has she done anything that could have provoked that attack? Be friendly to people of course; but no means no, there’s no other way about it.
Where alcohol is concerned, I know that lines can become a little fuzzy in terms of legal matters, but people are still aware of what they are doing at that moment. Same as before, if a girl says no whilst intoxicated she means no. She’s not playing hard to get, she’s not hoping that you’ll keep trying to wear her down, she means no, and she should not be punished and blamed for saying so.
What frustrates me overall though, is that girls are taught from a young age that they are often to blame for the male population’s inability to control themselves, through the use of dress codes in schools. Now I do think that students should dress respectably at school, so they’re not flashing anything, but for girls to be sent home, causing them to be missing out on their education, to change because of wearing “unsuitable clothing” is completely ridiculous. Also, the fact that girls constantly have to keep their shoulders covered, even in the height of summer, because it might distract their male friends is crazy. If a guy can’t control himself over the sight of a shoulder at school, why is he not getting spoken to, instead of sending the girl home to change?
One in 33 men in America have experienced sexual assault in their lifetime, which I know is a lot smaller figure than for women, but it’s still a fairly big percentage. For guys, the fact that they often have to keep their sexual assault to themselves for many years is just heartbreaking. They are always taught that they just need to “man up” and “take it like a man”; that showing their emotions makes them weak, and should be discouraged. This is a completely ridiculous notion, and needs to stop immediately, otherwise sexual assault is just going to keep happening.
For transgender students, the figure is the highest of all. One in four transgender students have experienced sexual assault. That number is ridiculous! Just because a person has been born into the wrong gender than what they believe that they associate with, does not give anyone the right for someone to take advantage of them. What they’re going through is rough enough as it is without anyone causing them to have increased anxiety and pressure from society.
A lot of the time, counselors at schools and in colleges don’t want anything to do with victims of sexual assault as it will look bad on their institutions, but this only encourages the attackers and discourages victims from coming forward. In colleges, less than 50 percent of victims come forward to say that they’ve been sexually assaulted. Only 32 percent of accusations are reported to the police, 7 percent of them lead to an arrest of the attacker, 3 percent are referred to persecutors, 2 percent will lead to a felony conviction, and only 2 percent of rapists will spend a single day in prison. 98 percent of rapists walk free!
Sexual assault is a huge issue in the United States, and until society changes the way they think and are taught from a young age, it will continue to be an issue. A film called The Hunting Ground is a documentary film that addresses the way that sexual assault is addressed in colleges across America, and I highly recommend watching it. The film is one of the first steps forward to dealing with sexual violence, but we still have a long way to go. Take the stand and help to stop sexual violence, don’t just let it fall by the wayside.
