Women have all heard the advice to stay safe from the ephemeral rapist — carry pepper spray, take a defense course, don’t ever walk alone.
But that doesn’t take into account the fact that most sexual assaults are committed by someone the survivor knows. Someone close to them, someone they can’t exactly pepper spray in the face without wondering if they’ve just done something horribly wrong.
The simplest advice is not for the survivors, but for the perpetrators: don’t rape.
Don’t take other human beings against their will — whether they be drunk, asleep or not interested — and have any sort of sexual relations with them.
I hope by now you’ve all heard the latest news out of the University of North Carolina about the alleged rapist who’s claiming his survivor — and former girlfriend Landen Gambill — made campus an unsafe place for him in the aftermath of Gambill’s Honor Court hearing after which he withdrew from the university.
Friends of the survivor say the unnamed boyfriend stalked her, visiting Gambill’s dorm room as many as seven times a day looking for her, The Daily Beast reported.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, thousands of these cases continue across the United States today, but how many do we hear about?
UNC is not alone in its survivor-blaming quagmire, but right now, its case is the one hogging the spotlight, so the outcome of this mishandled issue (letting an undergraduate-run honor council rule on a rape case?) is what matters most.
UNC has the chance to set an example of fairly run rape cases for the rest of the country, and it’s doing a pretty horrible job.
The worst thing any public institution could do is stigmatize rape for the survivor, which is exactly what UNC has done, no matter what the official statement says.
UNC forced Gambill to come forward with her story, which she never wished to do in the first place, hence her using the Honor Court as opposed to going to the police.
Imagine yourself in her shoes; a college freshman who maybe doesn’t want to become the poster child as the most recent rape survivor on campus or deal with the court proceedings for the rest of her college career.
Now her name will forever be linked to the case. Imagine worrying about potential employers Googling your name, and instead of finding your fancy personal branding site, they find a million different articles concerning your rape case in college.
That leaves an impression it shouldn’t in today’s culture.
The Honor Court would be the perfect discreet setting to put this matter to rest. Since the case was heard, UNC has decided Honor Courts can no longer decide upon cases involving sexual harassment or assault, which is a much better decision in the long run, so it’s a non-issue now. Gambill, though, had the option.
Instead of helping this quietly go away, here she sits.
Sure, “#StandWithLanden” was trending on Twitter not too long ago, and there are so many Facebook events to support her and to put pressure on the university that I can’t wade through all of them.
A campus rally this past Friday garnered support even from a student at Duke University, UNC’s famed basketball rival. It’s a hatred akin to LSU and ’Bama. If that doesn’t convince you of the issue’s severity, I’m not sure what will.
All this goodwill doesn’t change the fact that UNC’s system forced Gambill to come out with this story against her will, or that former UNC students came forward in support, telling their own similar stories of the university’s ineffective protection of survivors.
This isn’t just a UNC problem, though.
In 2010, there were five reported forcible sex offenses on LSU’s campus, according to a report from the LSU Police Department. That’s not a realistic number if you consider numbers reported by the National Institute of Justice that would suggest at least 4,500 currently enrolled Tiger women will have been sexually assaulted by the time they graduate college.
According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, only 46 percent of rapes are reported to the police.
Want to see those numbers drop in a real manner? My answer hasn’t changed. We can make this go away.
Don’t rape.
