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KitSileya

(4,035 posts)
2. Considering that one in five women attending colleges in the US are victims
Sun Aug 31, 2014, 12:17 PM
Aug 2014

of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault, you are right to worry. You read that right, 20%. And most colleges in the US handle sexual assault, including rapes, atrociously, often by victimizing the victim. Rapists (and perpetrators of other sexual assaults, but let's concentrate on the worst) are hardly ever punished. They are hardly ever suspended or thrown out of college. Most victims have to continue walking on campus with their rapists free and still attending the same college. In fact, many victims are the ones ending up punished, because they often drop out of college since they don't feel safe on campus. Hardly any college rapist is prosecuted and jailed. In most cases, the college retains the right to investigate (without trained investigators) and 'prosecute' rapes.

So yes, I would worry about your daughter's safety. There's tons of 'advice' given to women to avoid rape, but your daughter is most likely doing it already, having learned to do it at a young age. It is probably second nature t her now. However, most rapes and assaults are done by someone the victim already knows. Stranger rape is a very small number of rapes - mostly, women are raped by their boyfriends, husbands, friends, classmates, family members. Your daughter has entered a world that at times can seem very perilous. But she is an adult, and you cannot wrap her in cotton.

Based on your name, I am going to assume that you are a father, and tell you that you can also help change this. Get engaged in a mentoring boys program so that you can help change rape culture, and help raise tomorrow's men with the knowledge that men aren't inherent rapists that cannot help themselves - that instead, men can refuse to give the small number of men who are rapists cover by not accepting rape jokes, by not accepting nudge, nudge, wink, wink I'd tap that comments, by not accepting sexual objectification of women, and that it is masculine to express all emotions, not just anger. That it is ok for men to have to go without sex, and that if they want to have sex with someone, they do actually have to talk to that person. That wining, pressuring, blackmailing someone for sex is means the partner's consent is not given freely. That men too get to decide whether they want to have sex - and of they don't, that doesn't make them less masculine. That men get raped too, and that it doesn't make them less of a man to be a survivor, and that male survivors are just as often, or more often, shamed for not avoiding their assault. That until we get rid of rape culture, more responsibility is laid upon men to be certain that their partner wants to have sex - and that culture teaches women that in many cases, they have no right to refuse consent, so men must never assume. That it sucks for men too to live in a culture that minimizes rape - because when they find their life partner, it is a great possibility she or he is a survivor.

This became quite a long post, and it doesn't give the assurance I am sure you wanted when you posted your OP. But there is no assurance to give, I am sorry to say. I hope that your daughter is among the three quarters or four fifths that are not assaulted in their college career.

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