This past week, students on the DU campus began receiving emails with an all too familiar subject: the rise in sexual assaults. Typically, these emails detail need-to-know information on the crime, such as location or suspect profile. The newest addition to the slew of emails was delivered Nov. 15, with the subject “Campus Safety reminds you to be alert.”
Students’ safety should be guaranteed not by the buddy system, as one of the recommendations in the email suggested. Students, male and female alike, should be safe because people should not find the need to sexually assault each other. What life lesson ever made someone think it was okay to grab someone and assault them? To use date rape drugs? Any type of sexually related crime is illegal and should be treated as such.
By asking the members of our campus to protect themselves, it allows those that are breaking the law to continue their misdeeds. A campus-wide email should be sent out reminding the students that they are colleagues, they are students together, they attend a prestigious university together. Peers should not be attacking each other, like rabid animals in the wilderness.
This callous treatment of the situation is completely and totally accepted, because in today’s society, sexual assaults are seen as a preventable measure on the victim’s part. This is not so. It is not a student’s responsibility to wear something that covers themselves up to ensure someone not attack them, because the attacker purely cannot control their impulses at the sight of some skin. It is not a student’s responsibility to walk home with a partner because someone might see him or her walking alone and decide that he or she is a good target. It is the responsibility of the perpetrator and the perpetrator alone.
By asking for us to cover ourselves up and protect ourselves, you are blaming the victim.
If someone got shot and died, would society blame it on them because they were not wearing a bulletproof vest? Would onlookers say it was to be expected because they did not have a weapon with which to fight back? No. No, their death would be lamented and the perpetrator found, instead of telling everyone else to wear a bulletproof vest if they even wanted to step outside.
Society’s treatments of victims is something that needs to be sincerely examined, both on campus and in the outer world. A sexual assault is a horrible crime, one that deserves punishment. In addition to not catching the perpetrator, this email teaches the students to be afraid. This email teaches the students to expect the worst out of society, because someone cannot control their emotions and lust. It no longer becomes the responsibility of the person committing the crime- they are expected to commit the crime and only provides a secondary measure for the assurance of one’s safety.
This email asks students to expect the worst of their peers, when in fact these criminals are far and few between. It is a few who are committing these crimes brought to light; it is they that should pay for their crimes. The rest of the student body should not be afraid to go out at night and have a good time. Placing these safety measures at the responsibility of the student allows these crimes to go unpunished.
One’s safety should not be based off of their actions, their dress, their level of intoxication, etc. The safety of people lies with the responsibility of those who actually commit the preventable crime.
Stop the victim-blaming and most of all, stop committing crimes.
