CommunityEditor
05-18-2008, 08:32 PM
Time to change course
Defense Department misses point in education on sexual assault
By Brenda Bush
Along with many other service members, I have had mandatory training in sexual assault prevention.
While I am grateful that the Defense Department has chosen to tackle this problem, I am disappointed to see that its approach is backward.
In the training, a great deal of emphasis is put on the “victims,” making sure they don’t put themselves in the wrong situation at the wrong time, and make unwise choices.
There were several slides:
• Don’t go out alone.
• Don’t drink to excess; set limits.
• Choose your partner wisely.
• Don’t go to the house or room of a person you don’t know.
And so on.
But where are the slides that say:
• Don’t take advantage of an unconscious woman.
• Don’t keep buying drinks for a woman who is obviously intoxicated. (What could your intention possibly be?)
• Don’t set up a woman so that your buddy can take advantage of her.
• Don’t slip drugs into a woman’s drink to make her vulnerable.
• Don’t stalk a woman going to her car.
• Don’t think that it is your “right” to have sex.
• Don’t think that “she was asking for it” by wearing a short skirt or something similar.
In my view, the focus of sexual assault prevention is still weighted far too heavily on how not to be a victim, rather than on how not to be a perpetrator.
Lots of women, especially young women, need this victim education. But there are many men who need to be educated on their boundaries and expectations. As long as we continue to blame the victim and excuse the perpetrator, there simply will not be any progress, and the world will always be unsafe for women.
In recent Air Force and Marine Corps cases, the media spent a great deal of time trying to investigate the woman’s sexual/dating history, as if to imply that if they had ever dated or had sex, their rape was somehow excusable.
No one was outraged until the women were murdered after filing charges against their assailants. So … murder is bad, but rape is OK. Is that the message?
At some point, the man has to be held accountable. The fact that both of the women mentioned above had to continue to work with their assailants is incomprehensible. I believe what the Marine Corps said to one of the women was, in essence, “Well, you don’t look like you were raped.”
Webster’s defines rape this way: “Unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent.”
What we need to do is look at how we perpetuate any kind of environment in which forcible sex is not taken seriously.
Do you make comments about a person’s buttocks? Breasts? Do you discuss your weekend sexual conquests at work? Do you overhear your troops making these comments or jokes? What do you do about it?
Here’s a challenge. The next time you hear a sexual joke, take out the word “woman” and put your daughter’s name in there. Or your wife’s. Or your mother’s. Is it still funny?
Comments and joking imply acceptance.
What do you joke about?
———
The writer is an Air National Guard technical sergeant. She lives in Vancouver, Wash.
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/community/opinion/airforce_backtalk_sexed_051908/
Defense Department misses point in education on sexual assault
By Brenda Bush
Along with many other service members, I have had mandatory training in sexual assault prevention.
While I am grateful that the Defense Department has chosen to tackle this problem, I am disappointed to see that its approach is backward.
In the training, a great deal of emphasis is put on the “victims,” making sure they don’t put themselves in the wrong situation at the wrong time, and make unwise choices.
There were several slides:
• Don’t go out alone.
• Don’t drink to excess; set limits.
• Choose your partner wisely.
• Don’t go to the house or room of a person you don’t know.
And so on.
But where are the slides that say:
• Don’t take advantage of an unconscious woman.
• Don’t keep buying drinks for a woman who is obviously intoxicated. (What could your intention possibly be?)
• Don’t set up a woman so that your buddy can take advantage of her.
• Don’t slip drugs into a woman’s drink to make her vulnerable.
• Don’t stalk a woman going to her car.
• Don’t think that it is your “right” to have sex.
• Don’t think that “she was asking for it” by wearing a short skirt or something similar.
In my view, the focus of sexual assault prevention is still weighted far too heavily on how not to be a victim, rather than on how not to be a perpetrator.
Lots of women, especially young women, need this victim education. But there are many men who need to be educated on their boundaries and expectations. As long as we continue to blame the victim and excuse the perpetrator, there simply will not be any progress, and the world will always be unsafe for women.
In recent Air Force and Marine Corps cases, the media spent a great deal of time trying to investigate the woman’s sexual/dating history, as if to imply that if they had ever dated or had sex, their rape was somehow excusable.
No one was outraged until the women were murdered after filing charges against their assailants. So … murder is bad, but rape is OK. Is that the message?
At some point, the man has to be held accountable. The fact that both of the women mentioned above had to continue to work with their assailants is incomprehensible. I believe what the Marine Corps said to one of the women was, in essence, “Well, you don’t look like you were raped.”
Webster’s defines rape this way: “Unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent.”
What we need to do is look at how we perpetuate any kind of environment in which forcible sex is not taken seriously.
Do you make comments about a person’s buttocks? Breasts? Do you discuss your weekend sexual conquests at work? Do you overhear your troops making these comments or jokes? What do you do about it?
Here’s a challenge. The next time you hear a sexual joke, take out the word “woman” and put your daughter’s name in there. Or your wife’s. Or your mother’s. Is it still funny?
Comments and joking imply acceptance.
What do you joke about?
———
The writer is an Air National Guard technical sergeant. She lives in Vancouver, Wash.
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/community/opinion/airforce_backtalk_sexed_051908/