GRSJ224/Sexual Assault on University Campuses

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This article contains potentially triggering mentions of sexual assault. If this is a topic that may upset you, please do not read any further.

Sexual assault is a sex act occurring without consent of the victim, or when the victim is coerced or physically forced to engage in the sex act. It can include rape, groping and sexual torture[1].

Sexual assault is especially prevalent at colleges and universities. It affects women disproportionately, as many as one in four women in US colleges have experienced sexual assault[2]. Men aged 18-24 in college are five times more likely to experience sexual assault than men of the same age who are not in college[3].

Factors

This section explores possible factors for the high sexual assault rates on university campuses.

Age

Since the Canadian school system starts children in 13 years of school starting at age 5[4], by the time most people start university, they are at least 18 years old and are at an age where they become sexually active. People between the ages of 18-34 make up 54% of sexual assault survivors[3]. Many people form new relationships in university as well, and if they are not aware of what healthy relationships and boundaries look like, they may have trouble distinguishing sexually coercive behaviour from healthy sexual behaviour. Moreover, younger adults may not always have good judgment and may be more susceptible to peer pressure.

Alcohol and drug use

30% of Canadians aged 18-24 report heavy drinking at least once a month[5].

Use of drugs and alcohol is correlated with both being a victim and a perpetrator of sexual assault. When incapacitated, it may be harder for a victim to be aware of their surroundings and get out of an unsafe situation. Alcohol may also lower a perpetrator's inhibitions, or the perpetrator could use alcohol as an excuse or a justification for committing a sexual assault.

Women who drink heavily often are 8 times more likely to experience rape[6], and in around 76% of cases of males raping female college students, the female is intoxicated[6]. Moreover, more sexually coercive men had higher alcohol consumption during sexual encounters and on average[6].

Greek life

Both men and women who are part of Greek life are more likely to endorse rape-supportive attitudes or rape myths than other non-sorority and non-fraternity students[7][8].

Men who are part of fraternities give a higher importance to gender roles[9]. This is relevant to the proportion of sexual assaults committed and experienced because men are typically perceived as being sexually dominant, and women as sexually passive[10]. This perception, or sexual script, negatively impacts both female and male survivors of sexual assault because it perpetuates the harmful narrative that a woman's lack of consent is irrelevant, and that consent is implicit from a man because it is impossible for a man to dislike sex.

Women who are part of sororities are three times more likely to experience sexual assault than women undergraduate university students who are not involved in Greek life[11].

Prevention and Support

Here are a few categories of initiatives employed by universities to reduce the occurrences of sexual assault.

Safety

Safety initiatives are often geared towards women. These may include self-defense classes for women to teach them skills to overpower or escape attackers who may be much larger or stronger than them. There are also programs to escort students home after dark or to drive them home if they are intoxicated and concerned about getting home. Although these initiatives may help the general public avoid unsafe situations, they do not address the root problems: rape myths, victim-blaming attitudes and lack of consequences for the perpetrators.

Education

Consent may seem like a simple concept, but if people are not taught to respect one another from an early age it is easy to develop certain perceptions about what consent looks like and its importance. It is important to also challenge people's ideas of what a sexual assault survivor or perpetrator looks like, so that they don't end up blaming the victim, not believing them or not feeling as confident in reaching out if one day they experience a sexual assault.

As well as the basic concepts of consent, boundaries, safe sex and healthy relationships, it is helpful to teach people about bystander intervention so that they can help prevent situations that could lead to sexual assault, and pass on their knowledge to their peers. Bystander intervention is defined as "recognizing a potentially harmful situation or interaction and choosing to respond in a way that could positively influence the outcome."[12]

The last line of defense for someone at risk of a sexual assault is their own ability to navigate a potentially dangerous situation. For instance, the risk of completed rape was lower among first year university women who participated in a sexual assault resistance program than women who were simply given access to brochures[13]. Note that the lesser risk was because the women who participated in the educational program were able to recognize warning signs and put an end to non-consensual behaviour before it began. Survivors cannot control the actions of perpetrators, and it should be perpetrators who are to blame for an assault. The rate of women being coerced into unwanted sexual situations did not vary between the two groups.

To address the root of the problem of sexual assault, potential perpetrators must be taught not to commit assaults. New members of fraternities who participated in a rape prevention program were less likely to engage in sexually coercive behaviour and more likely to intervene in situations where alcohol-related rapes could have occurred than members who did not receive the programming[6].

Survivor support

Support for survivors of sexual assault can take many forms[14]:

  • Short-term emotional support
  • Legal advocacy
  • Accompaniment to appointments and to court
  • Long term counselling for trauma and repercussions on the survivor's mental health

Although nothing can change the fact that a survivor experienced an assault, having support after a sexual assault can help a survivor heal. Besides physical injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, emotional distress and suicidal thoughts are often experienced by sexual assault survivors. 13% of women who experience rape attempt suicide[3].

Awareness

When there are resources for sexual assault education and survivor support on a university campus, they are useless if students are not aware of them or they are not accessible. It is important for universities to not only have initiatives to reduce their high sexual assault, but also ensure they are effective. Also, if the governing body of a university does not recognize the severity of the problem, they may not fund these initiatives in the first place.

Intersectionality

Sexual assault does not affect all people equally. Certain marginalized groups already face discrimination in most other aspects of their lives, and they suffer higher rates of sexual assault as well.

Sexuality and Gender Identity

University can seem like a fresh start for young queer students who have the chance to move away from smaller, homophobic or transphobic communities to an environment that might be more open-minded. On the other hand, as many students may feel unwelcome in a new, high-pressure environment, queer students have to deal with the added burden of their identity being different from social norms.

Queer people experience sexual assault at rates equal to or higher than heterosexual, cisgender people. Of people in the queer community, bisexual women and transgender people have been impacted the worst. 46% of bisexual women and 47% of transgender people have been raped, compared to 17% of heterosexual women[15]. At the intersection of gender identity and ethnicity, the percentage of the population having been sexually assaulted is even greater: 65% of Indigenous transgender people and 59% of Middle Eastern transgender people have been sexually assaulted.

Corrective rape is when the perpetrator of the rape specifically targets a person they believe to be queer with the intention of forcing them to become heterosexual or to conform with gender norms[16].

Gender

As stated earlier, women experience rape at much higher rates than men due to gender roles painting women as sexually passive, and victim-blaming myths such as beliefs that women are to blame for their assaults if they drink or dress provocatively[10]. However, men are less likely to report rape, possibly because they fear they will not be believed. Men are perceived as having much higher sex drives than women, and so some people are prejudiced against male sexual assault survivors because they believe that there is no way a man would say no to sex. Moreover, on average, men are bigger and stronger than women, and it can be hard for people to understand that a perpetrator does not need to physically overpower their victim. Sexual assaults involving power imbalances, emotional manipulation and social pressure are very common.

References

  1. ↑ Peter Cameron, George Jelinek, Anne-Maree Kelly, Anthony F. T. Brown, Mark Little (2011). Textbook of Adult Emergency Medicine E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 658. ISBN 978-0702049316. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  2. ↑ Cantor, David, et al. “Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct.” Association of American Universities, Westat, 21 Sept. 2015, https://www.aau.edu/key-issues/aau-climate-survey-sexual-assault-and-sexual-misconduct-2015
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 “Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics.” RAINN, Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence.
  4. ↑ Citizenship Canada. “Elementary and Secondary Education.” Canada.ca, Government of Canada, 24 July 2017, https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/new-immigrants/new-life-canada/enrol-school/elementary-secondary.html.
  5. ↑ Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness. “Reducing Alcohol Harms among University Students: A Summary of Best Practices.” Canadian Books and Public Policy, 2012, https://www.deslibris.ca/ID/234087.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Foubert, John & Newberry, Johnathan & Tatum, Jerry. (2007). Behavior Differences Seven Months Later: Effects of a Rape Prevention Program. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. 44. 10.2202/1949-6605.1866.
  7. ↑ Kalof, L. (1993). Rape-supportive attitudes and sexual victimization experiences of sorority and nonsorority women. Sex Roles, 29, 767-780.
  8. ↑ Bleecker, E., Murnen, S. K. (2005). Fraternity membership, the display of degrading sexual images of women, and rape myth acceptance. Sex Roles, 53, 487-493. doi:10.1007/s11199-005-7136-6
  9. ↑ DeCarlo, A. L. (2014). The relationship between traditional gender roles and negative attitudes towards lesbians and gay men in Greek-affiliated and independent male college students (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://preserve.lehigh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2469&context=etd. (Paper 1469)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Donat, P. L. N., & White, J. W. (2000). Re-examining the issue of nonconsent in acquaintance rape. In Sexuality, society, and feminism. (pp. 355–376). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1037/10345-014
  11. ↑ Mohler-Kuo, M., Dowdall, G. W., Koss, M. P., Wechsler, H. (2004). Correlates of rape while intoxicated in a national sample of college women. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 65, 37-45.
  12. ↑ “What Is Bystander Intervention.” Student Affairs, Lehigh University, 2019, https://studentaffairs.lehigh.edu/content/what-bystander-intervention.
  13. ↑ Senn, Charlene et al. “Efficacy of a Sexual Assault Resistance Program for University Women.” The New England Journal of Medicine, 11 June 2015, doi:10.1056/NEJMsa1411131.
  14. ↑ “Services.” AMS Sexual Assault Support Centre, Alma Mater Society of UBC, 2019, https://amssasc.ca/services/.
  15. ↑ Human Rights Campaign. “Sexual Assault and the LGBTQ Community.” Human Rights Campaign, 2019, https://www.hrc.org/resources/sexual-assault-and-the-lgbt-community.
  16. ↑ United Nations (2015). "UNAIDS 2015 Terminology Guidelines" (PDF). UNAIDS.org. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
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