Monthly Archives: March 2008

What’s that thing on the right?

Posted on by

It’s a fundraising thermometer, of course! Since SAFER doesn’t have a big, high-profile office to display a cardboard thermometer, we thought we’d put it on our blog.

As you can see, April is an important month for us. Not only is it Sexual Assault Awareness Month, but it is the month we ask our supporters, old and new, to support our programs with a donation. Our goal is to raise $5,000 this month. That’s nearly a year’s worth of consultation services provided to 16 schools at no cost to students. Every $10 we raise is another hour of support we can provide to grassroots groups working to make their communities safer.

This April, we are starting off with $1,000 in the pot because of the generosity of some of our long-time supporters.

Another group of donors has offered to match gifts dollar for dollar up to $1,500!
That means your gift can go twice as far!

A $20 donation provides students with services that cost us $40!
A $40 donation is worth $80 to us!
A $100 donation is worth $200!

If you’ve been thinking about becoming a SAFER supporter or renewing your support, now is the time. Thank you for joining us in holding colleges accountable for violence. How to donate.

Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Posted on by

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably well-aware of the problem of sexual assault on college campuses. Maybe you’re a survivor, know a survivor, are a college student, or the parent of one. Whatever brings you to the cause, we welcome you and thank you.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. You can think of it as The Month When We Think About All We Have Yet To Do, or The Month We Think About Sexual Assault So We Can Stop Thinking About it Next Month, or my preference, The Month We Come Up With New Ways to Raise Awareness All Year Long and Celebrate the Work of Those Doing the Hard Work of Raising Awareness.

In that spirit, I ask you, gentle reader, to submit your comments about the various ways we can all raise awareness of sexual assault and celebrate the work of our peers, colleagues, friends, and neighbors working to end violence.

Some ideas:

Call your local rape crisis center and thank them for the vital services they provide your campus or community.

Call the person on your campus responsible for sexual assault prevention and offer to help out. Chances are that person is overworked and underfunded and could use a hand.

Continue reading →

Judical interpretation hurts rape victims

Posted on by

Here’s an interesting article about rape laws in the UK, showing that judges often allow sexual hsitory to be admitted in court, against a 2000 law restricting just that. The authors point out that as much of the population believes rape myths, so do judges and laywers.

Sexual Assault and the Justice Gap: A Question of Attitude, to be published by Hart Publishing on April 15, puts much of the blame for the low conviction rate on myths and stereotypes about the crime.

The authors say the entire justice process is affected, from the initial decision to report the rape to police, through to conviction or acquittal by a jury.

The authors – Jennifer Temkin, professor of law at Sussex University, and Barbara Krahe, professor of social psychology at the University of Potsdam in Germany – found stereotypical views about rape were widespread among potential jurors.

Their survey of more than 2,000 members of the public aged 18-69 showed people tended to blame the woman for bringing the attack on herself, see a case where the man had sex with a woman without her consent when she was drunk as not a “real rape”, and downplay the seriousness of having forced sex when the perpetrator was the woman’s former partner.

The views were also found to be common when the authors outlined a range of rape scenarios to British undergraduate law students in their final year and a group of British graduates doing professional law training, the lawyers and judges of the future.

They add: “Progressive law reform in the area of rape has been undermined by judicial interpretation and … some judges are not entirely free from the same stereotypical beliefs and assumptions held by members of the public.”

I appreciate that the authors are calling out judges as they disregard rape victims’ rights, and I hope this book contributes to better success during trials.

Good Stuff

Posted on by

A well-researched article by Nancy Anderson of the San Miguel Resource Center.

Most significantly:

A perpetrator’s likelihood of committing sexual assault is associated with higher levels of general aggression and impulsivity, lower empathy, more traditional attitudes towards gender roles, higher levels of hostility toward women, greater acceptance of using force in relationships, and beliefs that relationships are based on exploitation and manipulation. Additionally, perpetrators of sexual violence show greater acceptance of “rape myths” or false beliefs that victims enjoy assault, ask for or deserve rape, typically offer “token resistance” to protect their reputations but actually want to be overcome sexually, and lie or exaggerate about victimization.

What if, as Anderson suggests, we created prevention programs aimed at teaching people to recognize and counter these beliefs in men, instead of telling women to be neurotically hypervigilant at all times?

You know, it’s so crazy it just might work.

Anderson goes on to put the smackdown on rape acceptance in 16 Candles. Love her!

More on early socialization

Posted on by

A really interesting post over at abyss2hope on how we socialize young girls to accept boy’s aggression as children and then are shocked when they don’t know how to say no to it as teenagers. The post is written by a mother observing how other adults speak to her daughters and it raises really good points about respecting children’s boundaries from an early age so that they feel confidence in setting them and holding to them. Other posts about this are here and here.

Many of the readers of this blog (myself included) aren’t parents yet (and may not ever be) but part of what I found striking about this example is how often this kind of boundary undermining probably comes from babysitters, aunts and uncles, family friends, etc. No matter how you know a child, take responsibility for respecting her or him and let them determine how they want to be touched.

Last day for SAFER award nominations!

Posted on by

Today is the last day to nominate someone for a SAFER award!

The first annual SAFER Awards will be announced this April (Sexual Assault Awareness Month). Nominations are sought for the following categories:

1. Best student journalism related to college sexual violence

a)Straight reporting
b)OP/ED piece

2. Best campus prevention program or awareness campaign (staff-led)

3. Best campus prevention program or awareness campaign (student-led)

4. Best college survivor services

5. Best policy change (modification to existing college sexual assault policy)

6. Best new policy (completely new college sexual assault policy)

7. SAFER Activism Award (for the student or group of students who, in the past year, has exemplified SAFER’s principles by working to end sexual violence, promote dialogue, encourage bystander intervention, or create policy change)

To nominate someone for a student journalism award, please send their name, contact information, and either a copy of the article or a link to it. For the prevention program or survivor services awards, please send contact information for a person responsible for the program and basic information about the program or services. For the policy awards, we will need “before” and “after” examples. Send all nominations to organizers@safercampus.org by March 31st.

Don’t be shy; nominate yourself!

Continuum of sexual assault

Posted on by

Great article in the The Athens Messenger, the local paper in Athens, OH, near the campus of Ohio University. They report on the continuum of sexual assault, which includes offenses such as any unwanted sexual contact, as well as voyuerism, public indecency.

The Ohio University police department has a rather progressive statement on sexual assault:

“Sexual assault occurs along a continuum of intrusion and violation ranging from unwanted sexual comments to forced sexual intercourse,” according to an Ohio University Police Department statement on sexual assault, which states that anything along that continuum violates the student code of conduct.

The article goes on to state that people who go on to rape, often “test boundaries” with other inappropriate behaviors, and if they were stopped at this stage, perhaps their behaviors wouldn’t escalate into rape. Therefore, we must create a culture where any type of sexual offense is unacceptable, including seemingly less dangerous behaviors such as sexist jokes and catcalling.

The article doesn’t question the prevalence of sexual assault on campues, but instead even expands the definition. Very refreshing piece of journalism on campus sexual assault.

Black female bloggers successful in demanding that violence against black women be taken seriously

Posted on by

Al Sharpton has publicly reversed himself on the Dunbar Village case and agreed that the suspects should not be released on bail. I am so impressed with the circle of bloggers who made this happen – check out updates one and two at Black Women Vote!

Now let’s hope that more people will stand up to say that the white teenagers who gang-raped two younger girls should have been denied bail as the black teenagers were. And let’s hope that more people will join this amazing circle of bloggers and say that we need to bring an end to our tolerance of violence against women of color and of violence against any woman. I thank them for standing up and look forward to learning from how they succeeded.