Freshmen have flooded onto campus, ushering in an era of delicious food at dining halls that, somewhat like freshmen enthusiasm, lasts about two weeks. For now, though, they’ll sit enraptured by their Three Books discussion, learn about life on the Farm and probably all express their interest in pre-med and gleefully make plans to take CHEM 31X. Same old, same old – but, at the end of NSO, they’ll be the first class to experience a new program added on directly after the “Real World: Stanford” presentation called “Facing Reality: Cultivating a Community of Respect and Consent.”
This program, which features the director of the Sexual Assault and Relation Abuse (SARA) office, Stanford’s Title IX coordinator and two Stanford students as speakers, aims to educate incoming freshmen about sexual assault, rape and consent on campus. This new program will prompt freshmen to consider their own definitions of consent and hopefully encourage students to become actively involved in creating a safer culture on campus.
Having a program like this is beneficial to Stanford – few would dispute that claim. However, while having a program that explicitly acknowledges these issues on campus is a step in the right direction, it’s by no means a big one. “Facing reality” means facing the statistics:While 5 percent of college-aged women each year report being raped, actual numbers are most likely higher. With information this grim, the “Facing Reality” program has a lot to address.
What will this new program do? I have no doubt that it will make students examine their own definitions of consent. But I’m somewhat pessimistic about its ability to concretely affect the current environment on Stanford campus. We’re all invincible from the bad things until they happen to us; we’re not part of the problem because we don’t want to see it.
There are already efforts to reform the way Stanford treats rapists and survivors. Efforts like those of Leah Francis and the #StandWithLeah movement are indicative of gaping faults in Stanford’s policies – faults that are coming under increased scrutiny. Movements like these are necessary, but they are not enough. Stanford must be able to adequately respond to instances of rape and sexual assault, and it absolutely must be committed to stopping rape before it happens.
In addition to our existing (and themselves inadequate) reactive policies, we need to move towards proactive policies. We need to make sexual assault, consent violations and rape as unthinkable as cannibalism. Unimaginable atrocities – not unfortunate realities. We can’t just “face” reality – we have to make efforts to changeit. If the comparison to cannibalism sounds extreme, then that’s proof that we’re still unacceptably lenient on this issue.
Some realities right now that aren’t being told: Men in fraternities are more likely to commit rape.Men in fraternities are more likely to have rape-supportive attitudes ranging from the belief that women want to be forced into sex, to the belief that men should control all relationships. Does the “Real World” program tell that to incoming freshmen? Does the program tell the freshmen men in the room that, by the time their female peers are standing at graduation, more than 25 percent of them will have experienced some form of sexual assault? How about the fact that 7 percent of college men will openly admit to committing or attempting rape?
We need to take active responsibility for the culture we want to promote on campus. If you are a man, it is your responsibility to acknowledge that your college environment may not be as safe for women as you think it is. Don’t claim that you’re in that 93 percent and sit back, smug. Take it on yourself to help erase that 7 percent. Take it on yourself to talk to your friends, to talk to your fraternity, to talk to your club – because your silence keeps the status quo thriving. This is about realizing that there are structures and systems in place that contribute to sexual assault, that contribute to rape. It’s about using our presence in certain organizations to make those organizations safer. We have that responsibility to our dorms, to our fraternities, to our campus.
As for what Stanford can do, there have already been precedents set. Programs like The Men’s Program, which acknowledge the increased role men have in sexual assault and rape on college campuses, have been shown to significantly lower fraternity men’s belief in rape myths and have sustained this change seven months after the program’s end. Programs like “Facing Reality” need to be just as honest, even if honesty seems too gritty for our young, naïve freshmen. Reality is filled with inconvenient truths about college campuses, drinking, consent, rape, gender and privilege. “Facing Reality,” if it wants to live up to its namesake, needs to face all of reality.
Contact Lily Zheng at lilyz8 ‘at’ stanford.edu.