This is a piece I started in 2015. When I started it, I wasn't quite sure what direction it was going. Today I pulled it out and put down my current thoughts on the subject.
Over Memorial Weekend 2014, we were introduced to Elliot Rodger. He made headlines when he opened fire in a small college town near Santa Barbara, CA. We seem to be bombarded with news of school shootings, but Rodger was different. When the smoke cleared, we were not left with questions. He made his motive known through YouTube videos and a 140+ page manifesto he emailed out before he began his "Day of Retribution".
As the media shared the story throughout the weekend, a poor, little rich boy who just wanted to get laid was revealed. His targets were girls who he felt deserved to die for rejecting him and choosing other guys to go out with. He drove by a sorority house and opened fire. He wanted to "slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blond slut".
More appealing then his belief that women owed him sex were his supporters. People, mostly men, were commenting on articles agreeing that the girls got what they deserved. Got what they deserved? Young girls with their whole futures ahead of them deserved to die because this guy was still a virgin?
That weekend two women conceived a hashtag which would trend for several days; #YesAllWomen was tweeted beside stories of rape, harassment, and examples of the double standard between men and women. I grabbed my pitchfork and joined the angry mob. I tweeted and retweeted #YesAllWomen stories. I posted on Facebook and blogged asking for change. I was convinced if we (society) did not do something right then, things would never change.
October 2015 marked the anniversary of my sexual assault on a collage campus. Twenty years ago I went out for a fun night and returned to my dorm room a statistic. What happened to me back then is a story which echoes in so many news stories about college rapes today. The guy felt me being drunk was consent. His fraternity bothers cheered him on. I know this because one of them made a video tape which I viewed a few days later at the police station. When I think back to the images on the video, I am thankful that YouTube and social media didn't exist in 1995.
From where I am perched, not much has changed in regards to college sexual assault. Sure, campuses are being investigated for not being compliment with Title IX (1972 act to prevent discrimination in education--sexual assault falls under here), and many colleges are reporting lower numbers of sexual assaults, but we are still seeing too many stories of sexual violence. I believe that colleges are under reporting to avoid being investigated and to not hurt their enrollment. I also know that sexual assaults are under reported.
According to RAINN, one in four women will be raped in college. In fact, in 2015, I read somewhere that young women in college believe that sexual assault is just "part of the college experience". So we now live in a world where rape is so common place that girls are just accepting it as a rite of passage like drinking too many shots on their twenty-first birthday or the exit meeting they have with their financial aide counselor before graduation?
Why is sexual assault so rampant on college campuses? I believe college guys rape for the same reason Rodger killed those sorority girls in Santa Barbara. It goes back to power and entitlement. He felt girls should have wanted to sleep with him because he was a rich kid with a BMW and a director for a father. He felt he was the "manliest" man. Instead of using RU486 or waiting until a girl passed out from too much alcohol, he tried to come by it honest. He was rejected and didn't get the sex he felt he deserved. He killed girls who were like those who rejected him. As I wrote this I wondered which fate is better: to be raped and die on the inside from being violated or to be killed and have no life left on Earth. That's a tough one...
It continued into the summer of 2016 with the Stanford Rape Case and the hashtag #EveryWoman. I first learned about this case on a Friday night when I was scrolling through Facebook and happened upon the BuzzFeed article with the survivor's statement. She read this statement at the sentencing where her rapist would be handed down a six month sentence in county jail because the judge thought the maximum fourteen years in prison would have a severe impact on his life.
We live in a society where we worry about how boys will be impacted by the consequences of their actions. The survivor of the Stanford case (I refuse to call her a victim because I want to empower her), was raped when she was passed out drunk behind a dumpster. She woke up three hours later in a hospital with pine needles in her hair and no underwear. But, the judge in the case was worried about Turner's future?
The media wasn't any help. Much like the football players in Steubenville (2012), the media painted Turner as an all American swimmer who was about to have his life ruined by a girl who drank too much at a frat party. His mugshot wasn't used for the longest time; we kept seeing his yearbook photo. It's wasn't "Convicted Rapist Brock Turner, but "Swimmer Brock Turner." He had sex with a women who was unable to give consent. He violated her. I had no sympathy when the Olympic Committee said he could no longer try out. I didn't want a rapist to represent my country. Poor Brock Turner's life was ruined because of "twenty minutes of action". Yes. That's a real quote. A real quote from his father.
Outrage came from the sentencing. The angry mob returned to Facebook and Twitter to share their stories of sexual assault and injustices with the hashtag #EveryWoman. We condemned the media for the coverage of the case. We raged over the existence of rape culture. We stood in solidarity with the survivor. If the justice system was going to fail her, we were going to lift her up and help her move forward.
As I type this, Turner has already been released from county jail after serving only three months. We (society) learned this summer that it's okay for boys to have sex with women who are passed out behind dumpsters from too much alcohol. "Twenty minutes of (non-consensual) action will only cost you three months in jail.
I wish this story of sexual assault ended with privileged college boys. This fall, Donald Trump, the Republican Candidate for the highest office in America (POTUS) had a skeleton released from his closet. A few years ago, he bragged to a TV talk show host that a man in his position (money, fame, power) can just "Grab a woman by the pussy"; "They just let you do it." He dismissed his remarks as "locker room talk". Although this is disgusting, that's not the worse part. All his supporters, male and female, said that's just how men talk to each other. The whole, "boys will be boys" mentality. I'm not raising that kind of boy. I know lots of men who don't advocate for sexual assault because they feel entitled and owed something by females. Enough.
So, another hashtag was born on October 7th. Kelly Oxford, author, shared a tweet of her first sexual assault when she was a young girl. She was groped on a bus. Her hashtag, #notokay, has been tweeted millions of times. She received so many responses to her initial tweet and has said that we (society) can no longer deny that this is a problem in our country. I'm with her. How can we deny this problem? How can we say that "boys will be boys"? How can we say he got "twenty minutes of action" and the survivor he raped should not drink so much or go to fraternity parties? How can we let young men get to the point that they will kill women because they can't find a women who will agree to have sex with them?
It's time for things to change. We need to change the conversations we have with our sons. We need to teach consent. We need to let our daughter's know it's not okay for a guy to use his power, money, or fame to grab them inappropriately. We need to stop sexual assaults on college campuses. We need to force colleges to report accurate data and not hide how many sexual assaults are being committed each year. We need to force the media to stop worrying so much about the future of the guys who rape and put an end to rape culture and victim blaming. We need to elect judges who won't worry about the impact a prison sentence will have on a rapist, but on the impact that the assault had on the victim/survivor. We. It's on us.
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