So long as students face effective penalties for reporting sexual harassment, we will be unable to resolve the sexual harassment crisis in American colleges and universities.
We need a penalty-free way to report sexual harassment at universities
Tag: sexual assault
Women of the fields
Consumers play a vital role in industry reforms in a variety of settings — they’re the ones with the power to push for change, as seen for just one example in the arena of food labeling. It’s consumers who demanded ‘organic’ food and got it. It’s consumers who pressured for a number of other changes […]
Just believe rape victims. Period.
Professionally, I live in a world where reporting on any crime has to be hedged with weasel words and ambiguities in order to avoid the risk of libel — unless someone has been convicted in a court of law, I cannot technically that person a rapist, an arsonist, a thief, a murderer. Instead, we’re required […]
Where is incest in conversations about rape?
Rape is coming out of the shadows to occupy more and more public discussion, changing the way we think about and conceptualise sexual assault. The fight to destigmatise rape and refocus the problem on the people who commit it, rather than victims, is important, as is the opening up of some discussions that have historically […]
Sexual harassment and the graduate student
The last few years have marked a critical discussion about sexual assault on college campuses, which is a huge problem in the United States. Campus rape has emerged as a significant problem in no small part because of the way it’s handled by colleges and universities, which seem to prefer to cover it up rather […]
Disability and rape on the hospital ward
Content note: This piece discusses rape and sexual assault in medical contexts, though not in graphic detail. Reading statistics on rape and disability is sometimes akin to being plunged into a pit of fire for me. The statistics are so grim, even in their poorly collected and maintained state, as to boggle the mind. Broadly […]
Why people don’t report: Testimony
There’s a strong cultural pressure surrounding rape victims/survivors and reporting: You’re a bad person if you don’t report, if the rapist does it again it’s your fault, why wouldn’t you want the rapist to be punished, you need to talk about it to work through it, &c. This pressure doesn’t consider the needs of the […]
Book review: Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
I could read Speak over and over again. The same is true of many other people; there’s a reason the book is so critically acclaimed and loved. There’s also a reason it’s a popular target for book bannings. Speak is an intensely challenging book, whether your experiences mirror those of Melinda, or whether you’re reading it as an outsider. […]
Utilizing unexpected tools to combat farmworker rape
If you haven’t seen Frontline’s Rape in the Fields, I highly recommend it — the documentary is a detailed and unforgiving look at labour abuses across the US. As the title implies, the primary subject is sexual assault of farmworkers, specifically women, and it does contain some graphic and disturbing content including discussions of rape and […]
Cons, Gaming, and the Growing Anti-Harassment Movement
Many people are familiar with the pushback on street harassment that contributed to the buildup of the Hollaback movement, which has since gone international. It even has its own phone app, aimed at allowing people to name and shame street harassers in the act. The idea of making anti-harassment visible, fighting back, and making sure […]