Get involved in sexual violence prevention
by Patrick Chanton and Bill Greene
Indiana Campus Sexual Assault Primary Prevention (INCSAPP) has recently awarded Earlham with a grant to increase its efforts in sexual violence prevention. One way that Earlham is attempting to do this is encouraging discussion as well as increasing the male involvement in this process.
There has been a huge lack of involvement from men in organizations such as Action Against Sexual Violence (AASV).
Men’s Forum is a space for men to gather and discuss issues associated with sexual violence. Some of these issues include stereotypes about gender and sexuality.
Members of the Earlham staff and community have attempted to rectify the lack of male involvement by opening discussions on campus about sexual violence within the community.
In the past there was a greater amount of male involvement due to members of the football team who felt concerned about the stereotypes associated with sexual violence centering around athletes. Much of this prior involvement dwindled when these folks graduated. Our community is making an effort to rebuild male participation in the program. As members of these recent focus groups, we have witnessed multiple issues arise that relate not only to difference in gender but to general ignorance of issues within the student populace.
Many of us feel that the campus as a whole is unaware of the number of incidents that occur on this small campus. There is a general acceptance of the idea that Earlham, being a small and homey environment, is safe and removed from problems that affect larger campuses and our society as a whole. While there is little outright mention of the incidents, they do occur more than we would like to admit. One aspect of this issue that we discussed was this lack of awareness and the uncertainty of how one should even act in such a situation. One of our goals was to establish a discourse on how we as a community can address these situations as they occur.
A crucial aspect of our discussion was the role of our peers with a focus on men within these issues. While many of us are aware that primarily men are the perpetrators of such crimes, we are also aware that we have an important role in the prevention and awareness of such issues.
The resolution of sexual violence must arise from the union and cooperation of genders and community.
One aspect of our discussion was bystander intervention. While at parties each of us have admitted to witnessing interactions that seem suspicious in nature, we had dubious feelings of the intentions behind the interaction and were unsure of what may or may not have been taking place. We spoke about our uneasiness about stepping in and making sure that both people were happy in their present situation. We were unclear as to whether nonconsensual actions were taking place and even if we were the right ones to prevent them from happening in the first place.
It was generally agreed that it would be easier to talk to a person involved if we had had prior friendship or acquaintance.
We look forward to seeing the progress that the Men’s Forum can help bring about through cooperation of men on campus. We would also like to encourage anyone who identifies as male to come to future Men’s Forum meetings and to thank those who have already begun to show interest.
Sexual violence is a real issue even here on our campus. We have an opportunity to make some real change, so please come out and talk with us!
Patrick Chanton is a senior biochemistry major and can be reached at prchant06@earlham.edu.
Bill Greene is a sophomore undeclared major and can be reached at awgreene08@earlham.edu.
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