This afternoon, I received an email from the Ohio University Police Department that left me nearly shaking with anger and sadness.
It was a campus crime alert that provided a suspect description and narrative after a young woman was raped.
Bodies, and particularly women’s bodies, are so frequently dehumanized, objectified and violated that it has become a new normal. According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a person in the U.S. is sexually assaulted every two minutes. Eighty percent of those assaulted are under the age of 30. Only 46 percent of sexual assaults are reported to police.
This is unacceptable.
As a community, we have a responsibility to treat each other with basic human decency. This includes being actively antiviolence, as well as learning how to treat survivors of rape and sexual violence with dignity and compassion.
Part of our responsibility includes shifting the burden of safety away from those who are raped and sexually assaulted and onto the shoulders of those who CHOOSE to rape and assault.
I want to publicly encourage OUPD to modify their “personal safety reminders,” which were listed at the end of the email.
Sorry, OUPD, but walking home at night alone does not cause rape, and implying that victims rather than rapists are responsible for sexual violence?
That is unacceptable.
Here are some suggestions:
-If someone says no to sex, respect him or her instead of raping or assaulting him or her.
-If someone seems iffy about sex, back off instead of raping or assaulting him or her.
-If someone is too drunk or otherwise under an influence, be his or her friend and take care of him of her instead of raping or assaulting him or her.
-If someone is not soberly, enthusiastically consenting to sex, honor him or her as an individual with agency instead of raping or assaulting him or her.
If we want to end sexual violence, we have to approach the problem from the perspective that it is not the victims, but the perpetrators who are to blame.
We have to target our campaigns toward each individual being responsible for himself or herself and refusing to engage in sexual violence as a perpetrator rather than expecting each individual to deal with everyone else as a potential assailant.
I can’t prevent every other individual in the world, the U.S. or even OU from committing sexualviolence, but I can prevent myself from committing sexual violence.
And that’s a start.
Allie Erwin is a senior studying political science and serves as OU’s Honors Tutorial College student senator.
