Yesterday, on the 17th anniversary of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, Vice President Joe Biden released to kick off which encourages students to share their ideas about ending violence against young women in high schools and on college campuses. Folks can submit their ideas about making college campuses safer for all students until September 27.
Biden deserves major props for conveying the importance of primary prevention in his video message, although he never explicitly says “primary prevention.” Too often, mainstream media focuses on “preventing” rape by insisting that women “protect themselves” from big, bad, unknowable rapists. Biden mentions nary a risk reduction strategy in this video. Instead, he directly addresses POTENTIAL PERPETRATORS. Huzzah! Here’s an excerpt:
And you guys have to understand a very simple rule: No means no. No means no if she’s drunk or sober. No means no if she’s in a dorm room or on the street. No means no even if she said yes first and changed her mind. No means no, no matter what. Assault is assault. Rape is rape is rape and it’s a crime.
[Insert primary-prevention happy dance here.]
The downside is that Biden’s appeal is heteronormative to the max and excludes male and gender non-conforming survivors. But, otherwise, this is some good stuff, people, some really good stuff. I’ve transcribed the video below. You can get involved by visiting or using #1is2many.
Hello. The reason I’m talking to you today is that I need your help. We’ve got a big problem in the United States. The problem is that too many young women are getting victimized by sexual assault and rape. It is happening way too frequently in high schools and on college campuses. Every young woman going back to school has an absolute right to be free of sexual assault and rape, but, unfortunately, too many young women are victimized by their dates and their classmates. The research statistics are staggering. 1 in 5 young women will be a victim of sexual assault while they’re in college. 1 in 10 teens will be hurt on purpose by someone they’re dating; and 1 in 9 teen girls will be forced to have sex. You don’t know these women as statistics. You know them as your classmates, as your friend, as your sister, the person you study with and hang out with. And you also know that they need help; and one of the ways to help is when you know what’s happening or happened intervene, step up. There’s no such thing as an innocent bystander when it comes to the abuse of a woman. If you know of it, if you see it, you have an absolute obligation to stop it. And the only way we’re going to stop it is for all of us to speak up and act and make it clear that violence against women will not be tolerated at your school, on your campus, at any time, for any reason. Period. No man has a right to raise his hand to a woman. And you guys have to understand a very simple rule: No means no. No means no if she’s drunk or sober. No means no if she’s in a dorm room or on the street. No means no even if she said yes first and changed her mind. No means no, no matter what. Assault is assault. Rape is rape is rape and it’s a crime. I’m asking all of you, all of you to help get this message out all across the country on every single college campus in the country. I want you to know, and I want to know from you, actually, what has your school done to make you feel safer? What could they do that they’re not doing to make you feel safer? What ideas do you have to help prevent dating violence and sexual assault and make campuses safer for everyone? We all have an obligation to stop sexual assault. We have an obligation that any woman who has been assaulted knows she’s not alone. So talk to me. Let me know what you think, because we have to act and act now. Since I wrote the Violence Against Women Act way back in 1990, violence against women has gone down by 50%. But it’s gone up lately in the category of teens and college women. And there’s no reason why we can’t make the same progress in that area with young girls and women as we have overall. So start talking about this on campus. Let me know what else we should be doing by visiting whitehouse.gov/1is2many. Tell us what you think. Or use the hashtag #1is2many to share your idea on Twitter. Finally, if you’ve been abused or need help, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at -SAFE and they’ll direct you to help in your area immediately. One more thing guys: If you know somebody’s being abused or see someone being abused, be a man. Step up. It could be your sister. It’s your obligation. Thanks guys. We need your help. We’ve got to stop this. So be in touch. Let me know what you think. Thank you.
I am in 100% full support of this. I work at a center that’s purpose is to end violence on our college campus, and find this campaign extremely vital and am so happy to see that it exists.
The thing that bothers me is the “be a man” at the end of the video. It should not be about gender norms and stereotypes, but rather about being human beings and not wanting too see another person getting hurt or abused. I think that Biden has the right idea, but somebody really needs to tell him that in the world that we are living in, violence happens to more than just straight couples, and that there are more than two genders in our world, and that not only “men” can be strong and that “sisters” are not always the ones getting hurt because they are perceived as weaker.
Good start, though.
Vice President Biden,
Thank You for speaking out against sexual violence/RAPE against women! PLEASE keep in mind…that the violence just doesn’t occur on college campuses! When we can start to prosecute those who commit these crimes of POWER and those who spend time creating senarios of “set up” to get themselves out of the mess they have created, it will demostrate to all who have been accesssories or complicent that their actions were and are inappropriate! Thank you for your consideration and keep up the GOOD/AWESOME JOB! More information to follow! Denise R. Myles, PhD, 10/22/11.