Reassessing Sexual Violence

Illustration by Doreen Lam

On April 17, I attended the rally and speak-out for Take Back the Night, an event aimed at promoting awareness about sexual violence. I arrived at Barnard’s gates, where several hundred students gathered around organizers welcoming students to the event. Within minutes, I was handed a red whistle labeled “Take Back the Night” so I could whistle along to chants such as, “Take back the day! Take back the night! Take back our bodies! Take up the fight!”

While Take Back the Night brings much attention about sexual violence to Columbia’s campus, the entire month of April is nationally recognized as Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Throughout the month, supporters gather for a myriad of events across the country in an effort to raise awareness and promote prevention resources.

One component of these available resources at Columbia is the speak-out, where students share their stories from behind a curtain. While I was very moved by the accounts of these victims’ stories, I noticed that several women hesitated to label their experience as rape or even as sexual assault. Whether these women consciously blame themselves for being drunk or for not knowing how to say no, an overwhelming sense of guilt in their stories left me disconcerted and unsure what Take Back the Night was all about.

Over and over again, the speakers indicated that they were reluctant to speak because they believe that they could have done more to prevent the act from taking place. Had they been more sober, said no more forcefully, or not gone upstairs with a man they hardly knew, they would have been able to avoid the situation. Why did so many of these speakers feel uncomfortable acknowledging their experience as sexual assault?

Perhaps this disturbing self-doubt and self-blame stems from the emphasis that prevention programming places upon self-protective strategies. While these tactics are practical and important to learn, they leave the root of the problem unaddressed: the perpetrators of sexual violence are kept in the dark, void of a forum to express views on both why sexual violence is so prevalent in our society and how we can prevent perpetrators from committing acts of violence. Perhaps an environment that promotes dialogue about sexual violence—from discussing attitudes that cause sexual violence to providing counseling for perpetrators—is crucial in encouraging the critical thinking that is necessary for effectively addressing how to prevent sexual violence in the future.

Interestingly, both the Barnard director of safety and the Take Back the Night organizers sent out e-mails inviting students to attend a Crime Awareness Seminar held right before the march. At the event, Crime Prevention Officers of the 26th Precinct, Transit Districts 3, and the PickPocket Squad taught students “awareness tactics and self-protective strategies” that they believe are the necessary “tools to navigate the streets of any city, safely and confidently.”

I happened to read the e-mail just after returning to my room on the night of the speak-out, when I was feeling disconcerted about the tendency of the speakers to suggest that they could have done more to prevent the sexual violence from happening. The e-mail, which encouraged attendance at a seminar on self-protection strategies while simultaneously informing students about Take Back the Night activities, unintentionally sends the message that sexual violence is preventable on the grounds that victims can protect themselves.

Education about self-protective strategies is important, but an environment that fosters communication and dialogue about the reasons why so many people commit acts of sexual violence on our campus and in our society is needed. We should be able to recognize and monitor the progress we make toward ending sexual violence. Doing so requires equal emphasis on prevention strategies as well as discussion about the violence itself. There are programs on campus which aim to change attitudes of sexually violent individuals, but in comparison to prevention strategies, little effort is made to promote them.

The uncertainty and hesitation in the voices of Columbia University students who spoke out are a testimony to the need for change in how we address sexual violence. We can work on this problem by creating an environment wherein one’s convictions are never stifled. Shifting our attention toward open dialogue about the pervasiveness of sexual violence might just be a first step in lessening a victim’s guilt after being sexually assaulted. When Columbia students make these necessary changes to effectively combat sexual violence, we will not only hear students speak out—with conviction—that they were sexually assaulted, but also will reassure them that their stories will never go silently into the night.

The author is a Barnard College sophomore majoring in psychology.