Rape on college campuses

    I would like to dedicate my blog post to the way that rape culture has manifested itself around me throughout my life as well as here at Colgate.
    College makes it so easy to get in a situation where you may be raped. College makes it so easy for rape to occur and for there to be absolutely zero repercussions. College makes it so easy to feel like the rape was your fault, or like it wasn't even rape at all. Of course, when I am using the word college, I am talking about the students within the college. We are taught to see rape as an abstract phenomenon, such that rape may only be defined by use of aggressive force and violence. We are not taught to realize that having sex within someone who is too drunk to know their own name is rape, but rather a "hookup that they will regret and call rape". We are taught that rape is an excuse, not a crime.
    These are all factors that have allowed rape to occur uncontestedly on college campuses for years. People are simply under the impression that rape does not happen. In reality, it happens every day. It happens within couples, between friends, and between strangers that meet at the Jug. We have just been taught to call those relations sex rather than calling them out for the acts of rape that they are.

    The biggest problem with all of this is that the school as an institution can't do much to change our minds regarding the definition of rape. If you notice, the signs in the bathroom are all measures taken after someone has been raped. It is so terribly difficult for the school to prevent rape from occurring in the first place, because it is simply a student driven phenomenon. That is why it is of utmost importance for students to pay careful attention to the requests of the Wesleyan professor. An idea from the piece that really stuck out to me was that tolerance for rape and bullying displays your own selfish relief that it is not you who is the object of humiliation. We tolerate rape simply because it is not us who is being raped. Similarly to how passivity even in the absence of overt sexism contributes to patriarchy, passivity even in the absence of personal acts of rape contributes to rape culture.

    A final problem that I want to identify is the social stigmatization of rape, that I fully believe contributes to the disgustingly low percentage of rapes that are reported. The word rape is so heavy. It implies so much, and can literally be a life changing accusation. This makes it a very difficult decision to report someone. We know that conviction of rape will drastically affect their life, and society teaches us that it is simply not worth it. We are taught that it will be a shame that their college career is ruined, and it will be a shame that such a "good kid" is permanently marked by this awful offense. It is as if it is as much of a crime socially to report a rape as it is to commit one in the first place. THIS is what has to be changed. It has to be fully socially acceptable to report a rape, and people who report cases of rape need to be taken 100% seriously. Simply put, as the reading stated, if someone is going to report a rape, there is no question whether or not they were raped. Every individual understands the implications of an accusation of rape, and would not bring that kind of weight forward if there was no validity to it. Never question a rape victim as to the validity of their accusation, because for them to come to you in the first place implies that they fully trust you to believe them without the need to justify themselves.