Violence Against Women on College Campuses
October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. I always like to draw attention to this - and this year, given the Cornell sexual assault case currently being discussed in the media, I am going to focus a lot of my discussion on the gender-based violence that exists on college campuses. I have worked on college campuses for over 15 years creating programs and materials for gender-based violence prevention and response and educating people about mental health. Let’s start with a brief history and a few statistics…
A brief history of gender based violence on campuses that took the media by storm
SA and IPV stories in the media
In 2013 Emma Sulkowicz carried a mattress around the Columbia University campus. It was an artistic expression, and protest, of her experience being raped and ignored. She had accused someone of nonconsensual sex –someone she had sex with previously- it was not violent and the case was dismissed because of amiable messages she sent to him after it happened. Two other women and a man also accused this same student of assault and verbal abuse but Emma’s report was ignored. Her making her case with “art” was eventually held against her.
In 2015, Chanel Miller was raped behind a dumpster at Stanford University. Her assault was stopped by a bystander who happened to pass by and decided to intervene because the girl on the ground (Chanel) appeared to be unconscious. Despite eyewitness accounts and his own admission of specific acts of assault, he spent a total of 3 months in jail. His father stated that his life shouldn't be “altered forever” because of “20 minutes of action.”
In 2016, University of Utah student Lauren McClusky discovered that a man she had been dating briefly had lied about his name and age. She learned that he was a registered sex offender and she broke up with him. After the break up he harassed her and extorted her for $1000. Lauren and her mother reported everything to the campus police…multiple times. But because there was no “credible” threat and they couldn’t prove that it was her ex-boyfriend that was extorting her they said they couldn’t help her. He grabbed her, while she was on the phone with her Mom, then shot and killed her and left her body in the backseat of a car.
Lauren’s story really highlights the importance of understanding intimate partner violence.
Intimate Partner Violence
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is
stalking
psychological aggression
physical violence
sexual violence
This can happen between individuals
who are dating (even just casually, even if it is just one date)
have an established sexual relationship
are married or divorced
who consider their partner a boyfriend/girlfriend
Domestic violence, a term commonly used interchangeably with IPV, includes violence inflicted by intimate partners as well as immediate family members and relatives; it is commonly misunderstood only as violence between two people who cohabitate. IPV occurs in relationships regardless of living situation, and in fact is most prevalent in dating relationships. IPV occurs most frequently in the 18-24 age group, which is the age of the “traditional” college student. Over 40% of dating college women report experiencing abuse from their partner.
Any kind of abusive experience can impact physical and mental health as well as lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms. For women in college it can also lead to drop-out/unfinished college degrees (especially when women are ignored or forced to continue to see their perpetrators on campus). There are long-term financial, psychological, and physical effects for the women who experience intimate partner violence and sexual assault.
IPV and Sexual assault (rape) are underreported and cases are often mishandled. Navigating the system to report abuse on campus can be convoluted and survivors are sometimes discouraged from completing the report. Next in this series I will talk about seeking resources, bystanders, being trauma informed and the mental health impacts of experiencing assault and abuse.
And… yes men also experience IPV and sexual assault. And yes…women can be perpetrators. But the overwhelming majority of IPV and sexual assault cases are perpetrated by men against women.
Some references:
https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-statistics/
Black, M.C., Basile, K.C., Breiding, M.J., Smith, S.G., Walters, M.L., Merrick, M.T., Chen, J., & Stevens, M.R. (2011). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010 Summary Report. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Where to find local medical care after assault:
https://rainn.org/where-to-find-medical-care-after-sexual-assault/