violence and women

Violence and Women

I thought that our discussion went well. We had a small group of about six people but three of us were leaders so we had a lot to talk about. Each of us went around and asked one question because we did not have time to discuss them all. But that did not matter because the other leaders had similar questions to mine. I was able to retrieve different responses from the others in the group for three out of my four questions.

My first question asked why rape was so much more common among college students than among the whole rest of the population. The group came up with the fact that college is the first time people discover drinking and sexuality and want to do all the experimenting they can. Also it is the first time most college students are on their own meaning without the guidance of their parents, and that could probably effect their decision making for the worse. Also a college campus has a more accepting atmosphere for rape and sexual harassment. Every night students are heavily drinking, going to dance clubs or parties with dancing, while people of older age groups have families to take care of, jobs and more responsibilities altogether. For someone older, being accused of rape could ruin their life and most men would not want to risk that. This leads into my next question about fraternity houses as high-risk environments for rape, and why we tolerate this behavior. Twenty-five percent of college women experience sexual harassment or rape and ten percent of rapes in colleges happen in fraternity houses. A study was done on college campuses about the difference between fraternities with a low-risk and the high-risk of sexual assault or rape. Students were asked to identify which ones were which and they could easily recognize this. So my question was, if everyone knows these differences, why do men and women participate in activities that support the rape culture when they see its injustices? The first response from the group was that we probably turn our cheeks from such behavior. We do not think it could happen to us or people we associate with. We began talking about the differences in the parties, but I think it was hard for everyone to directly relate ourselves to the situation because Washington College is not that way.