2008 Woodie Awards
op-ed: Start the dialogue on sexual assault
Kristen Ward and Aki Ito
Issue date: 4/24/08 Section: Opinions
I was molested at age 3.
The police told me I should have tried harder to get information about my rapist.
My friend said he didn't rape her - she doesn't think it's rape because she was drunk.
Even my family didn't believe me.
I told him no, and he did it anyway.
A guy in my class wears a shirt that says 'No means yes.'
The man who raped my best friend lives in my building.
These and many other powerful statements were made by courageous women and men last Thursday night at Lovefest, Feminist Action at Middlebury's annual speak-out against sexual violence. Students came together to speak out about their own experiences with sexual assault, as well as the experiences of their friends and family. According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, one in six women, and one in 33 men, have been victims of sexual assault in the United States. Translated to Middlebury College, approximately 200 women and 36 men on this campus have been or will be sexually assaulted. Some of those cases are happening right here, right now on campus. In 2006, two cases of forcible sex offenses were reported to Public Safety. In 2005, four cases were reported. Yet, most incidences of sexual assault go unreported. How many of you know this person's story?
We need these survivors' voices and experiences to be heard, validated and discussed on this campus by everyone in the community. Yet we rarely talk about sexual assault in our idyllic Middlebury bubble.
We believe that this silence is partly due to a lack of understanding of what constitutes as sexual assault. How do I know if I have been sexually assaulted, or if I have sexually assaulted someone else? This confusion is shared by many of us.
If our school really is, as it claims to be in the Handbook, "committed to promoting, through education and awareness-raising activities, a campus environment where sexual assault and exploitation are recognized as wholly unacceptable," then why are we only vaguely aware of what is prohibited on this campus? A few weeks ago, the school sent out a leaflet describing Middlebury's sexual assault policy. But we suspect that very few actually read the document before throwing it away.
The police told me I should have tried harder to get information about my rapist.
My friend said he didn't rape her - she doesn't think it's rape because she was drunk.
Even my family didn't believe me.
I told him no, and he did it anyway.
A guy in my class wears a shirt that says 'No means yes.'
The man who raped my best friend lives in my building.
These and many other powerful statements were made by courageous women and men last Thursday night at Lovefest, Feminist Action at Middlebury's annual speak-out against sexual violence. Students came together to speak out about their own experiences with sexual assault, as well as the experiences of their friends and family. According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, one in six women, and one in 33 men, have been victims of sexual assault in the United States. Translated to Middlebury College, approximately 200 women and 36 men on this campus have been or will be sexually assaulted. Some of those cases are happening right here, right now on campus. In 2006, two cases of forcible sex offenses were reported to Public Safety. In 2005, four cases were reported. Yet, most incidences of sexual assault go unreported. How many of you know this person's story?
We need these survivors' voices and experiences to be heard, validated and discussed on this campus by everyone in the community. Yet we rarely talk about sexual assault in our idyllic Middlebury bubble.
We believe that this silence is partly due to a lack of understanding of what constitutes as sexual assault. How do I know if I have been sexually assaulted, or if I have sexually assaulted someone else? This confusion is shared by many of us.
If our school really is, as it claims to be in the Handbook, "committed to promoting, through education and awareness-raising activities, a campus environment where sexual assault and exploitation are recognized as wholly unacceptable," then why are we only vaguely aware of what is prohibited on this campus? A few weeks ago, the school sent out a leaflet describing Middlebury's sexual assault policy. But we suspect that very few actually read the document before throwing it away.
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