Photo by Kyle West

By: Eden Wondmeneh

Consent education seems to always be an afterthought at McMaster University. The word “consent” is consistently thrown into events, seemingly out of place, with no elaboration, discussion or focus.

During Welcome Week, the word was plastered on posters that appeared at all the major events and was projected in vibrant colours on the big screen prior to the concert.

The way consent education was treated during Welcome Week foreshadowed how the subject would be addressed during the rest of the year: just enough to get a hypothetical participation award in disrupting trends of sexual violence but too little to make a legitimate impact on campus rape culture.

This culture is something that does not go unnoticed by those who are most likely to be targets of sexual violence. A late night food run is never complete without words of caution and offers of someone to walk with. It’s unfortunately not uncommon to walk with your keys in between your fingers.

Once when I was walking home, after parting ways with my group of friends, a male acquaintance yelled back, “Be careful! Campus rape culture is still a thing”.

To him I say, believe me, I know. There is rarely a moment, at a party or anywhere on campus during non-peak hours where my friends or I don’t feel discomfort, or even fear.

Following the news of sexual violence within the McMaster Students Union Maroons, this tension is especially high. Prospective Maroons are hesitant to submit returning applications and attending events run by or affiliated with the MSU is often met with a little more resistance.

The MSU’s response to the allegations and overall toxic campus culture has been dismal.

In the beginning of March, posters commissioned by the Ontario government were hung up in several residence buildings. It reads “If you are watching it happen, you are letting it happen. Consent is everything”.

This was the first attempt I noticed to address the importance of consent in my residence. Although this message is true and important, it being the only form of consent education on residence is frankly pathetic.

McMaster is not treating consent education as a major priority. Any educational materials, workshops or sessions produced or run by the MSU or its services are only accessible to those who actively seek out those learning opportunities. Even campaigns run by the Student Health Education Centre, while important, have limited reach.

Despite their value, consent education needs to reach beyond those populations to those who need it the most.

The issue of consent cannot be addressed on small poster in the basement of a residence building. Misconceptions or being ignorant to consent needing to be mutual, voluntary, informed and continuous directly results in continued sexual violence on campus.

In order to shift toxic campus rape culture, there needs to be open lines of discussion about consent that are inherent to the structure of Welcome Week, life on residence and campus life in general. These discussions need to be backed by action; posters and platitudes are not enough.

The nonchalant backburner approach to consent education fails to create an inclusive and safe community for all students.

 

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WARNING: This article contains graphic descriptions of rape and mention of suicide.

I was a Welcome Week representative in 2012, and I met John Doe*, a fellow rep, through some friends. We didn’t work directly together, but he hung out with us often. I thought he was funny, we had the same taste in music, but I never thought of him as anything more. My friends were close to him, and I liked my friends, so it all seemed great. It was after our fourth encounter with each other that he raped me.

It was the day of the Yates Cup. I had gone to a friend’s before the match for some drinks. I was happily drunk but felt the cold November wind hitting my cheeks as the game crept closer to half time. My friends texted me that they were at TwelvEighty and there was an extra seat for me.

As I entered TwelvEighty, I saw John and my friends. I had run out of money and waved my debit card around, asking for a drink. The bartender said that if I had no cash, I had to buy a pitcher in order to use my card. I did so and ended up drinking most of it.

John got up and stretched, and announced that he was going to go for a walk. I was beginning to feel nauseous and figured that joining him would be a good way to sober up. We walked until we found a stairwell. He sat on the stairwell while I fell on them. I remember his face getting closer to mine slowly. He kissed me and I could hear footsteps approaching. People passed by, the match was still going on. I felt exposed and uncomfortable.

I suggested to him that we should go into a private room. I wanted to talk and I wanted for us to be alone. I wasn’t thinking about kissing him more. To be honest, I genuinely wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, I was just drunk. I know I didn’t encourage him, but I clearly didn’t express myself as properly as I wished.

We went into a room in the arts quad basement. He turned off the light and I sat on the ground as standing had become too tricky.

He pulled his pants down and tried to shove himself into my mouth. I was frozen. Somewhere in the back of my mind the phrase “freeze, fight or flight” popped up, and I cursed myself for having the worst reaction.

“Get on that bench.” he said. At that point in time I was so dumbfounded that any short instruction seemed sensible. He pulled off my jeans. I realized what his intentions were, and mustered up the strength to cover myself with both of my hands and said loudly, “No. Stop. I don’t want to. No. Stop.”

I remember him pulling my hands away. He pressed his lips against mine, hard. I remember hearing him grunt, and the occasional loud cheer from TwelvEighty came through the walls. My insides were screaming for my body to get up, to punch, to do anything, but I was incapable of moving. I was scared of his strength. Not physical, as he was short and smaller than me, but his mental strength – the fact that he ignored my pleas frightened me.

Something began to buzz in the room: my friends whom I left outside at the game were attempting to find me. They kept calling. Eventually, he stopped. I had sobered up enough by then to hop off the piano bench, pull up my pants, pick up my phone. We left the room and he headed back to TwelvEighty while I made a beeline for MUSC. As I left he called out, “See you around, eh?”

Somewhere in the back of my mind the phrase “freeze, fight or flight” popped up, and I cursed myself for having the worst reaction. 

I went to the Student Centre and ran into my friends. The shock settled in minutes after and I told my friends what had happened. They took me to Shoppers to buy a Plan B.

The next few days blurred together. I showered for 45 minutes washing every inch of my skin, hoping that the harder I scrubbed, the less dirty I’d feel. I couldn’t sleep. School didn’t matter. I lived off-campus and I would leave the house earlier because I didn’t want to face my parents.

I told my friends later on that day. It was confusing to them because they knew him for years. They said they believed me, but within that week they also told me that he made a mistake and they would remain friends with him.

John Doe called me the very next day and told me he knew I told our mutual friends, and that I was wrong. He declared he did have consent because I took him to the private room. A few days after this, I was with a friend, who was also a good friend of John Doe, but was supporting me during this time. John Doe called me, and I put it on speaker so she could hear what he was saying. He warned me again not to tell anyone, and claimed I was being ridiculous. “Am I always supposed to ask a girl if she wants to have sex with me?” he said in a sarcastic tone. I was stunned. His friend looked at me with an unfathomable expression. I hung up.

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My close friends were trying to convince me to report him, but even I was confused as to whether this was rape or not.

I even went to my old high school and confronted two of my closest teachers about what had happened. It hurt me to tell my friends and teachers. I’d see their faces register shock, worry, sadness, frustration, but I didn’t know what else to do. It felt as though I had such a big weight on my shoulders, and it had become too much for me to carry it by myself. I had to tell people who knew who I really was, who knew me before this happened, so I could cling onto my sense of self.

However, I also told people I regret telling. I shared what had happened with friends I wasn’t really close with. At the time, I thought that telling people would help bring some sense into this situation. However, the thoughts some shared with me confused me even more:

“Well, you did tell him to go into that room with you…”

“You were really drunk…”

“You are a super friendly person, so he just mistook that as flirting…”

“I’m not sure if this is considered rape because you probably enjoyed yourself once you started having sex, right?”

Another friend approached me at university one day and handed me a brochure explaining rape and that was when it finally clicked for me. I was raped. Some of my other close friends encouraged me to attend counselling, but it wasn’t until I saw the brochure that I did.

When telling the police, I had to replay every single thing in my mind. It felt like picking at the scabs of a wound that was trying to heal. We had to figure out how long John Doe and I were in the private room, and calculated that I was raped for 45 minutes. 

Two weeks after the incident, I went to see a counsellor in the Student Wellness Centre. My counsellor was nice enough but I felt rushed having to explain what had happened within my 30-minute time slot. It took me 10 minutes to stop crying. She referred me to the hospital and I headed there after my appointment.

Because I didn’t go there straightaway and had showered after being raped, they could not get his semen off my body. Instead, I underwent a physical exam and a mini counselling session. They took my urine sample and I had to take a pregnancy test. Afterwards, they gave me a handful of crushed up pills and water, telling me that these would wipe out any sort of STDs I could have contracted from him.

Within a month after it happened, I attempted suicide. To summarize it all into one sentence: I felt like a failure, like a used up rag that needed to be disposed. I am grateful that it was a botched attempt, and that I had friends around me who let me talk to them openly about it and made me realize it was not the way out.

One month after being raped, I contacted the city’s Sexual Assault unit and talked to a police officer on the phone. We arranged for them to meet me at a friend’s house, where they would interview me and fill out a report. At the time, that was the hardest thing I had to go through. When I told my friends or teachers what had happened, I was able to skip some parts. I was able to provide a summary. When telling the police, I had to replay every single thing in my mind. It felt like picking at the scabs of a wound that was trying to heal. We had to figure out how long John Doe and I were in the private room, and calculated that I was raped for 45 minutes.

I ended up going to the police station about a week afterwards and had an interview with the police. He said he met with John Doe and spoke with him. He asked if I wanted to take this to court, and added that it would take one year. I turned it down. I didn’t want this to drag on. Because I said no, it only says on John Doe’s profile that he was questioned for rape, but that’s it. The police officer patted me on the shoulder as I was leaving and said, “Take care of yourself. Next time, try not to get yourself into this sort of situation, like the drinking...”

The following summer, I found out that John Doe was going to be a Welcome Week rep again. I contacted friends involved with Welcome Week and was referred to the Office of Student Conduct. I went to their office and told them everything. They informed me that had I approached them right after it had happened, they could have done more. John Doe could have faced more serious consequences. I had no idea that I could have approached the Student Conduct Office. I wish I had known, and hope that more information is given to first years about it now.

The office asked me if I could provide a witness. I immediately thought of his close friend that overheard our phone call after it happened. I messaged her and explained the situation. She sent back a lengthy response, acknowledging that she heard what John Doe said, but that she wouldn’t be able to be a witness for me. She added that I seemed to be holding a grudge and keeping in some pent-up anger. She then closed the message saying that her and other friends were also upset about what happened, but they found ways to move on. Her closing sentence was wishing me all the best. I was disgusted, and still am as I type this.

I showed the office the message, and since she acknowledged what John Doe had said, that was all he needed. He told me that he would meet with John Doe and that he would be monitored at all times during Welcome Week. He also said that John Doe wasn’t allowed to approach me on campus, and that I could call security if he did. While that was comforting, that wasn’t the point of my actions. I didn’t want him to harm anyone ever again, especially first year students.

The conduct officer advised me to go to the Human Rights and Equity office, which I did. I met with someone who was extremely nice and warm. It was comforting to open up to such a wonderful person. She informed me of an upcoming event SACHA, the Sexual Assault Center for the Hamilton Area, was hosting at Mac, which was aimed towards friends of sexual assault victims. I attended the session with one of my great friends.

After being raped by someone who I thought was my friend, the most difficult part was letting go of my friends who still supported him. It genuinely crushed me to have my friends tell me they still considered John Doe a friend. One friend messaged me an apology this spring, saying that she finally sees how horrible John Doe is, and that she will always regret not supporting me. Her message was what I had wanted for so long, but when she finally sent it to me, it had lost its value. I had to go through the rest of my undergrad avoiding my Welcome Week friends and certain parts of MUSC where they hung out.

I would think about it at least once every single day for the first year. I would find myself taking the car and driving to a random parking lot to break down and cry without any interruptions. I’d cringe every time I heard a rape joke, pretend I wasn’t affected while inwardly accepting the fact that the joke would stay in my mind for the rest of the day. I began to join numerous clubs and kept busy. I picked up more shifts at work to avoid being home.

Some days, I would have such a good time with friends that it wouldn’t be until I went to bed that I finally realized I hadn’t thought about it all day. I learned to congratulate myself with every little step towards improvement. I dread November a little less now. I didn’t have sex again until a year and a half later. When I did, and I realized it is still pleasurable, I was elated. John Doe may have become the focus of my life and taken things away from me, but this was not one of them.

Sometimes there are setbacks, though. I recently went home with someone and was triggered by the sexual position he wanted us to be in. I ended up crying in his arms. I was lucky because he was kind and understanding. I am now seeking counselling.

Less than two weeks ago, a good friend of mine approached me and told me she had been raped. She brought a guy home who asked her if she wanted to have sex. When she said no, he proceeded regardless. As she was telling me what had happened, I was trying to control my emotions, to be her rock. But how could this have happened? How could someone assault such a kind-hearted human being? What had she done to deserve this? I felt heartbroken all over again.

While I will never be able to fully understand what she’s going through, it’s safe to say that I have a general idea. The pain from being in the position of a victim’s friend was different, but still prominent.

These situations made me realize how often people question what rape really is. I now know that, put simply, it is any form of sexual activity with another person without their consent is sexual assault.

The statistics are disgusting: one in four women in North America will be raped. While the media normally reports rapists as being strangers in parking lots (which does happen often, unfortunately), that is not true for the majority of rapists. 80 percent of the time, your rapist is someone you know. It’s a close friend, or acquaintance, or family member.

I hope people can learn from the experience I’ve had dealing with this crime on campus. There are resources on campus to approach and consult if you have had a similar experience, but it still isn’t enough. If you have been in a similar situation, please contact the Human Rights and Equity Services department at the university.

*Name has been changed.

The author of this article has asked to remain anonymous. If you have any questions, email thesil@thesil.ca.

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RESOURCES ON AND OFF CAMPUS
If you or someone you know is in need of a support service, below is a listing of local centres that are able to provide a variety of services and couselling.

On campus
Human Rights and Equity Services
Provides confidential complaint resolution according to the University’s Sexual Harassment Policies.
(905) 525-9140 x. 27581
hres@mcmaster.ca

Meaghan Ross, Sexual Violence Response Coordinator
(905) 525-9140 x. 20909
rossm4@mcmaster.ca

Student Wellness Centre
Provides a wide range of counselling options and medical services and testing.
(905) 525-9140 x. 27700
wellness@mcmaster.ca

WGEN
Provides confidential support for all victims of sexual assault.
(905) 525-9140 x. 20265
wgen@msu.mcmaster.ca

SHEC
Provides confidential peer support, referrals on and off campus, anonymous and confidential pregnancy testing.
(905) 525-9140 x. 22041
shec@msu.mcmaster.ca

Off campus
SACHA
Provides a 24-hour support line, counselling services and public education.
(905) 525-4573
(905) 525-4162 (24-hour Support Line)

Hamilton General Hospital, Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Care Centre
Provides a 24-hour support line, counselling services and public education.
(905) 521-2100 x. 73557
sadvcarecentre@hhsc.ca

Hamilton Police Services
Takes crime reports from city constituents.
(905) 546-4925

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Anonymous contributor/ WGEN column

For all intents and purposes, I felt that I had consented to what my partner did to me. I invited him over, we engaged in sexual activities and we stopped when I wanted to sleep. When I woke up a few hours later to find his hand between my legs I felt violated and in distress, but I pretended to sleep. I didn’t tell him to stop what he was doing, but I also didn’t say that I wanted him to touch me like that while we slept. It took a very long time for me to feel comfortable with sex after that encounter, and an even longer time to realize that what he did was wrong.

It can be difficult to tell the difference between someone asking for your consent and someone demanding it.

My story is not unique; many people have had similar confusing and upsetting encounters where someone they are dating crosses a line. Justifications for your partner’s actions are commonplace and understandable and usually stem from the belief that you already gave consent or owe your partner sex even when you don’t want it. This stems from unhealthy understandings of relationships on the one hand and a partner’s sense of entitlement on the other.

Consent should be an easy concept to grasp; when two adults both express that they want to engage in sexual activity, they do. However, consent in relationships can be a grey area because you’ve already established that you are attracted to your partner and want to have a physical relationship with them. In addition, the vulnerability required in a long-term relationship can lead to someone agreeing to sex against their will because they feel that it is their duty to their partner. For those such as myself who’ve never been in a healthy relationship before, it can be difficult to tell the difference between someone asking for your consent and someone demanding it. A partner who respects consent will respect boundaries and take no for an answer (and ask for a “yes” in the first place), while a partner who does not respect you will push and push until you “consent.”

Dating someone doesn’t mean you are entitled to their body at all times. Like casual relationships, just because someone has agreed to something before doesn’t mean that they have to do it again. In a healthy relationship both parties feel comfortable expressing their desires and only proceed if both people are interested. If you find that your partner continually pleads and manipulates you into engaging in sex that you aren’t comfortable with, it’s probably time to take a look at your relationship and its power dynamics.

It’s important to remember that while sex can be a wonderful way to feel closer to someone, it isn’t the only way. We sometimes forget that vulnerability exists outside of the bedroom and that relationships require emotional partnership to be sustainable. Look at most of your platonic relationships — I’m sure those are just as fulfilling as your romantic ones, and probably have few, if any, sexual components to them.

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By: Sunanna Bhasin

Lady Gaga’s video for her latest song “Til It Happens to You” opens with a trigger warning explaining that it contains graphic content but “reflects the reality of what is happening daily on college campuses.” In other words, this video needs to be seen. The video challenges common views regarding sexual assault. There’s no “obviously-shady-looking character” that initiates the first attack.

Gaga reveals the truth behind many sexual assault cases: the perpetrator is often a friend or someone close to the victim.  It also calls out those who question the victims when they come forward. The irony is that the victims should feel supported enough to speak out, yet the reason they often don’t is because of people – who, in most cases, have never experienced sexual assault – shaming them for getting involved in such egregious acts, implying that they had a choice.

In the music video, a young woman is raped by a colleague in her music studio. In this way, Gaga brings the notion of victim blaming to the forefront: would you really think to blame a girl who is attacked by someone she considers a friend in a work environment?

The pop singer doesn’t stop there. In fact, she explores the stereotypical party setting in order to question the common accusation victim blamers tend to make—“oh, well she shouldn’t have been drinking.” To this Gaga argues, no, he shouldn’t have drugged her drink. This exact instance of sexual assault is depicted in the video when a young man drugs two women at a party by slipping pills (Rohypnol, no doubt) into their drinks. This case is all too familiar to anyone who pays attention to the news. Gaga captures almost every case involving male perpetrators and female victims. While these do not comprise all rape cases, they do make up the majority.

While some may criticize Gaga for excluding scenarios where men are raped, it is imperative to understand that she does this purposely. She makes it clear that she is focusing on sexual assault (which describes less violent cases as well) on college campuses. While she could have broadened the scope of her video, the message she leaves behind can be applied to either of the aforementioned situations: support victims, and don’t be too quick to make assumptions about what happened because you won’t understand “‘til it happens to you.”

Although the video starts out overwhelming and heart wrenching, the most beautiful aspect is the solidarity you see towards the end. Slowly, the victims come together to share their traumatic experiences, and then the community begins to reach out. At the end of the video, the victims march out of a college building together confidently with male and female supporters urging them forward. Gaga encourages viewers to be among those who listen to the victims and try to understand them, but she doesn’t allow you to become complacent just because she has proposed one small solution to a much larger problem. When this group of survivors leave the building, there is the silhouette of a victim who hasn’t been able to speak out yet looming in the background. Gaga’s lesson is clear – make sure that no victim feels isolated or blamed for what happened. This is demonstrated by victims, who had previously tattooed self-hatred on their arms with messages such as “I am worthless” and “Believe me”, writing words of encouragement and love on their bodies: “I am worthy” and “I love myself”.  One in five college women will be sexually assaulted this year unless something changes. It’s a haunting statistic mentioned at the end of the video which has resulted in positive changes at McMaster, such as the #consent campaign during welcome week. As the issue of sexual assault becomes more large-scale, international superstars like Lady Gaga address it openly. However, as a McMaster student, I encourage all of you to understand the urgency of dealing with this atrocious rape culture that has encroached onto college campuses across North America and ask yourselves: which role will you play?

Readers should be advised that this article contains mentions of sexual assault.

There is a pervasive cultural image of “The Good Survivor.”

The Good Survivor can be seen on television, in Lifetime movies and in those real-life stories of sexual violence which we choose to highlight.

The Good Survivor is white, middle class and was attacked by a stranger. She fought back. She wasn’t drunk, she wasn’t on drugs and she wasn’t in a relationship with her rapist.

She is straight, and young, and articulate. She immediately goes to the police, who believe her, and her rapist is prosecuted. He goes to jail, and she moves on. The movie ends there, with the implication that she has been changed but not traumatised, and that her rape was a mechanism by which she became “strong”. She forgives her attacker. She’s not a victim, you see. She’s a survivor.

I loathe her.

Philosopher and Holocaust survivor Jean Améry wrote, “man has the right and the privilege to declare himself in disagreement with every natural occurrence, including the biological healing that time brings about. What happened, happened. This sentence is as true as it is hostile to morals and intellects.”

Améry felt that when forgiveness is made a virtue, unforgivingness becomes the victim’s vice. The desire that victims forgive their abusers comes not from any wish for the victim to find closure, but to show that the victim was not irrevocably damaged. It absolves not only the attacker but those who allowed it.

When I was three-years- old, I trustingly followed my favourite uncle down to the basement. We were going to play a game.

The “game” didn’t end until he died five years later. In time, he started taking pictures.

I never told anyone. I didn’t fight it. There was a part of me, an isolated child with few friends her own age, that relished in the attention. It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t right. But you can reconcile many things. I thought that I was special.

In a movie, one of the Good Survivor kinds, my mother would have noticed, or I would have told her, and we would have gone to the police. They would have used my testimony to take down my uncle and the men he shared my images with. I would have emerged triumphant.

In reality, I dissociate completely when anyone touches my neck.

It is popular to refer to rape victims only as “survivors.” I understand that this gives many of those people strength, and I would never condemn anyone’s methods of understanding their own trauma.

I didn’t “survive” my rape as one might a forest fire. It was not an act of God. It was a crime, and I was the victim.

I was once given a workbook that subtitled itself “From surviving to thriving!”.

I hated it. I hated it more when it became apparent that the book and others like it were focused on helping return people their identity and sense of self that they had before their rape.

I was raped before I knew how to read. The background of my early childhood is one of profound trauma, but one which was my normality. There is no returning to some previous whole. If I was broken, I was broken so early and so often that there is no me without this brokenness.

If this seems to you to be clinging to victimhood, understand that I cling to it in a context which so desperately wants me to forget. A culture which so desperately wants me to stop talking about it, to stop feeling its effects — the emphasis on survivorship in feminist communities has often struck me as being terribly insensitive to those of us who have to remind ourselves that what happened was a crime. If we are traumatised, if we are broken, it is because we have experienced something that was designed to break us.

I take my strength from being broken, from these proofs I have that I was hurt by someone’s deliberate choice rather than an amorphous inevitability.

I refuse to forget. I refuse to forgive. I refuse to rationalise.

I was the victim of a crime. This sentence is as true as it is hostile to morals and intellects.

By: Sophie Hunt

It has been said that Bill Cosby is a comedic legend, a cultural icon that has influenced the lives of people across the world. Fans still flock to his shows and pay money for front-row seats in order to listen to his jokes. Yet there is a problematic undertone to Cosby’s performances that these people are ignoring.

There are many dedicated fans of comedy that have chosen to look past the recent sexual assault allegations made against Cosby. Nearly 20 women have stepped forward claiming that Cosby, either decades ago or in recent years, sexually assaulted them in various ways. Despite the allegations and charges that began to surface as far back as 2005, fans of the comedian stand with him and continue to support his career. Cosby has recently visited three cities in Southern Ontario, including Hamilton, and avid fans still attended his comedy show, despite the presence of protestors willing to speak out against Cosby at his events.

The reflexive response of Cosby’s fans is not an isolated incident. Many influential celebrities continue to maintain their fan base despite any wrongdoing on their part. We participate in a culture that allows a celebrity’s popularity and career to cloud the conversations about social issues that should come about from scandals such as Cosby’s.

Why have people chosen to ignore the incredibly serious claims made by these women? Fans have been quoted as saying they support the comedian regardless of the allegations made against him, simply because they enjoy his comedy and have grown up watching Cosby’s work.

There is a passive acceptance in our culture that brands influential individuals as untouchable by the backlash that should come about from the crimes they commit. Regardless of whether or not the claims of these women are true, a precedent must be set when dealing with allegations of this nature. The fact that these women’s claims are so willingly overlooked invalidates their voices, and instead works against their efforts to bring to light horrible crimes that potentially have been committed.

The central concern here is the blatant disregard these fans have for the women that have come forward and revealed their claims against Cosby. Instead of supporting the rights of women who have suffered from sexual assault, or even acknowledging that these allegations exist against Cosby, fans are choosing to turn a blind eye to the overall implications of Cosby’s performances. By allowing him to continue to tour, fans are implicitly working against efforts being made to give voice to those who are fighting for the rights of sexual assault victims.

Cosby’s extensive and influential career does not- and should not- completely discredit the allegations that have been made against him by a continuously growing list of women. His “legendary” status should not invalidate these claims, whether or not he is proven guilty. The voices of these women cannot be ignored, and a vital change needs to be made in the way society views celebrities in the wake of serious allegations made against them.

This year has been filled with some drastic examples of rape culture on campuses across Canada, McMaster not withstanding. But while the large-scale media concern around the topic is somewhat comforting, I find its coverage allows bureaucrats and image managers to polarize the issue by acting drastically, and without long-term goals in mind.

When I first heard about the engineers’ songbook, I couldn’t say that I was surprised. I knew it was just a matter of time before something like it occurred, whether it was the Redsuits, the Maroons, or a group of as-of-yet unknown students. I was more curious about how the University would respond – would they try to understand the issues surrounding rape culture on campus and help dismantle it in the long-term, or would they strike quickly, to arbitrarily reprimand the students who overstepped the line far enough to garner media attention? Again, I was not surprised.

The engineering students are being treated like children who ought to have known better, when neither the University, nor student societies have made the effort to point out this type of worrisome behaviour in the past. In fact, I will go as far as to say that both the University and the students have inadvertently endorsed it.

The question that needs to be asked about the drastic examples of the songbook is: how did the University let it get this far in the first place? Shouldn’t there have been safeguards or education mechanisms in place to help students and staff understand how these actions can create a normalized culture of exclusion and prejudice on campus?
And I am not removing myself from this jumble of blame. In fact, I have also unintentionally endorsed the engineers’ behaviour in the past. The example that stands out the most occurred during my welcome week.

But my discomfort around the memory doesn’t really come from being in that situation, rather, it comes from what I did: in that moment, I went along with the “silly antics” of those “hilarious” welcome week representatives. I reinforced something that I didn’t even know I could be a part of: rape culture.

In first year, the words “rape culture” projected an image of viewable physical violence – rape, domestic abuse, overt exclusion. At that time, I could not believe that drunken college sex, which has often been presented as a staple of the “college experience”, would be labeled something so drastic. But the definition is more complex than just a series of unmitigated action or inaction by a bunch of fumbling undergraduates, it’s much more than the engineers’ songbook and it’s much more than the University’s ignorance. Don’t get me wrong, all of those act as the nuts and bolts, but I think we fail to see how these individual actors function in relation to perpetuate and maintain rape culture on campus.

Loosely linked, events like this could onto subliminally message the individuals of the culture. Our experiences surrounding these cultural experiences range in a spectrum, given how engaged with the issue we are. There are also various degrees of influence that this cultural subliminal messaging goes on to do.

It ranges from taking the presentation as a joke, a caricature so far removed from our realities that we cannot help but uncomfortably giggle. “Who would be so stupid to try something like taking someone home drunk?” The horror of what that could mean is too ludicrous to process, and so we disengage and laugh.

Others are enraged at what this simple and comedic presentation of rape could possibly mean. They can map out the social network and influences that will go on to perpetuate this kind of thinking. They imagine the first year, who comes from a community that doesn’t talk about consent or rape, or who comes from a mindset that cannot imagine the anxious, helplessness that floods a person’s mind after instances of gendered violence.

Even others, who unconsciously adhere to the culture that assumes that the university experience is one of aggressive sexuality, are internally affirmed that their experiences or assumptions are valid. They go on to consciously commit these instances of violence without awareness of the horror they are perpetuating.

When I was in first year, I straddled the line between extreme offence and uncomfortable giggles. But I have been wondering about why I didn’t voice my discomfort in my first year. I imagine how the scenario would play out: I was a first year student, who had no idea what the protocol to report such an incident was. If voiced out loud, I could imagine comprehension dawn on the faces of my friends of 24 hours.

“Oh, she is one of those people”. You know a prude, a killjoy, a complainer. Her culture probably prevents her from doing it – they would whisper behind cupped hands.

None of the reasons for not speaking up, and expressing my discomfort, but I think there should just exist more places on campus where students can go to with these thoughts, that don’t serve to punish students or ignore the issue, but instead listen and try to help both sides understand how their actions could be perceived as hurtful. The sanctions against the engineers have only served to pit students against one another, and made the dialogue about political correctness instead of gender inequality. The students have not acted any better. It has become a blame game, which shifts the lens from the issue of gender inequity to student politics and office bureaucracy.

As university students, we’re never taught that we have a responsibility for one another. We operate under the delusion that our successes and failures result from individual action. But that’s not true; we’re constantly straddling the divide between selfhood and culture. Culture is sieved into our brain through the systems that we’re in (education, government, media) and as individuals and organizations with various lenses; we filter through this information to come to gradual conclusions. Then these organizations and individuals go on to influence culture. The process is cyclical and one from which we cannot remove ourselves.

We have a tendency to quickly cry out “but that was not my fault” but we need to start thinking about these culture-forming and culture-informed events in a different way, not in a way that framed in politically correct dialogue, but in a way digs deeper to point out where this culture festers in the first place, and in a way that recognizes that the culture outside of the university is one that permits gender-based violence in casual interaction.

Instead of arbitrarily imposing sanctions, which act to fuel the feeling of injustice in the minds of engineers, the student lens needs to shift to show the potential implications of such a songbook, and steps need to be taken to better educate all students on campus about sexual and gender-based violence before they happen.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the Saint Mary’s University and University of British Columbia frosh week rape chant debacle. And, if you’re a decent human being, you’re probably also appalled by it.

In short, frosh orientation leaders at the two universities (that is, the two universities it has surfaced at so far) have come under fire for a cheer that goes, “Y is for your sister, O is for oh-so-tight, U is for underage, N is for no consent, G is for grab that ass.” It’s inappropriate, inexcusable, and frankly, inhuman. But that we already know.

What has come under less fire is how the media, the universities, and the students involved have handled the whole situation. That’s where my beef is.

To start, this article is one of only a few newspaper pieces you’ll find that actually puts into print all the verses of the chant. Most condense it, and only include excerpts – strange to me, considering it’s a whopping 26 words long. They usually eliminate the “oh so tight” part, perhaps to avoid offending readers (and yet is that not the whole point that this is really offensive?), which becomes convenient when they then water-down their adjectives to the stuff of mere “sexist chant” instead of acknowledging the vaginal violence that phrase indicates: rape.

Indeed, the National Post ran the shockingly forgiving headline “Saint Mary’s University student president apologizes for ‘sexist’ frosh chant that critics say ‘reinforces rape culture’”. So we’re relying on critics to confirm that that disgusting string of words is, in fact, offensive? And what is with those scare-quotes? Is the National Post so insecure in its values that it has to only tentatively identify that the chant ‘reinforces rape culture’? Grow up, NP, and tell it like it is.

The Globe and Mail, too, published, “Frosh video cheering on non-consensual sex is ‘sexist and offensive,’ Saint Mary’s University says.” Let me make something clear right now: sexism is stuff like believing women are worse drivers than men by the mere fact of their gender. Sexism is by no means harmless, but it’s not on the violent level of this rape promotion. This frosh chant goes way beyond sexism, and to reduce it to that is to belittle the severity of the situation.

Enough with the “non-consensual sex” language, too. Rape is rape. Let’s not dilute the violence of that word by smothering it with “non-consensual” euphemisms. Doing so decreases the urgent sense of violence and pain that the term “rape” appropriately connotes, and disrespects the countless victims of this horrible crime whose experiences are downgraded by such rhetoric.

Enough, too, with all this talk of sensitivity training. The people who chanted the rape cheer were fully aware that it was wildly inappropriate – it’s common sense. No amount of university-administered sensitivity training or bringing in bullying professionals (the actual response at SMU) will awaken them to something they already know, or solve the deep-seated indifferent misogyny that perpetuated the chant’s continuing presence at so many years’ frosh events.

What does need to happen is to hold students more accountable for their actions – upper-year coordinators and first years alike. It shouldn’t have taken days for the Saint Mary’s student’s union president – who led the cheer, among others – to step down. He should have been fired - immediately. The schools shouldn’t be promising to “investigate the incidents”; the frosh leaders involved should be suspended, and maybe even expelled.

Consequences need to apply to the youngest people involved, too. First year students are, on average, 18 years old. They are legal adults who can vote, can drive, and have achieved secondary school grades high enough for admission into a university-level institution. So I don’t care about group mentalities, or how impressionable these young adults are. They are autonomous, intelligent individuals who have no excuse for singing along, for not blowing the whistle sooner on this chant, and who then grow up to become frosh leaders who propagate this whole cycle.

I’ve never heard anything like that cheer at McMaster, and I hope I never will. But I won’t be surprised to hear about more students criticizing and publicizing similarly violent and vulgar experiences at other universities after this coast-to-coast reveal. For in a country where our media sugarcoats, our administration band-aids, and our students deny responsibility, where's the pressure for this culture to change?

View the full video that kickstarted this whole discussion, here:

[youtube id="SMY9Tqxz-Ec" width="620" height="360"]

 

Udoka Okafor / The Silhouette

Rape is one of the most gruesome of crimes. For all its victims, it represents the highest invasion of their privacy. It is a crime that preys on the most vulnerable. Current statistics for rape do not fully represent the reality of rape cases in society.

Part of this stems from the fact that many people do not know what rape means and that many rape victims do not report their crimes for fear of being blamed and shunned.

Rape culture has been institutionally embedded in our society. This gross sexual objectification of women and their subjugation to unfair standards is an accepted reality.

Rape victims are shunned, blamed and further abused by powerful figures in society. When you talk to some people, they will tell you that rape will happen no matter what we do. The question I ask is, why? And I deem it imperative to answer that question.

Before I continue, I want to make something clear, and it’s that rape is a crime of power, not sex. This is actually a very important element of rape that people tend to miss.

Rapists are not only in it for sexual gratification, but to overcompensate for their lack of strength.

I am a strong believer that powerful figures who have sexual affairs with young, vulnerable people should be prosecuted for rape.

It is never okay to take advantage of someone’s vulnerability.

That is why we have laws on statutory rape that protect teenagers from predators who take advantage of them, even if the teenager ‘consents’ to the sexual activity.

The reason, I believe, why rape laws do not identify, protect and prosecute all rape crimes in society to the law’s fullest extent is due to historical statutory redundancies and patriarchal oppression that has been institutionally embedded in our society and its legal system.

My point is to draw attention to the brutality of the rape culture we live and experience. Victim blaming, sexual objectification, double standards, protecting rapists and so on are expressed to their highest degree in our society. The first step to solving a problem is awareness.

Many people, especially women, do not know how power and oppression subjugates them to this vicious culture.

The best way to begin targeting the rape culture is to expose people to the voices of the abused, the repressed and the silenced. The voices of victims hold the key to ending rape and rape culture. Their voices will go a long way.