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NYT reports on program that reduces campus rapes

Here:

A program that trained first-year female college students to avoid rape substantially lowered their risk of being sexually assaulted, a rare success against a problem that has been resistant to many prevention efforts, researchers reported Wednesday.

Sexual violence is a serious hazard on college campuses. By some estimates, one in five female students are raped, and women tend to be at the greatest risk during their first year on campus. In the aftermath of several highly publicized campus rapes, the White House last spring issued guidelines directing colleges to address sexual assault.

It’s now a year and a month since sports reporters told the campus the UO administration had been hiding an alleged rape by three basketball players. Does anyone know if there will be an effective training program on sexual violence prevention for students arriving this fall?

2 Comments

  1. Jocelyn Hollander 06/12/2015

    We actually have such a training program already. The Women’s Self-Defense class in the PE department, which I co-teach with Ryan Kelly, is very similar to the class described in the article. (I know the author of the study and have reviewed the curriculum in detail — and I do research in this area, so I feel very confident that our class is similar — and it’s quite a bit longer, so it may be even more effective.) Ryan and I have been developing this class over the past year, and it has been supported by Student Life, Academic Affairs, PE, and CAS. I’d be happy to answer any questions about the class or about research on this type of program. It’s the one sexual violence prevention strategy that has good evidence behind it.

  2. Hart 06/13/2015

    So, I am all for any program or system which reduces the number of rapes; however, I hate, like a LOT, that this program once again focuses on teaching women how to avoid rape rather than on teaching men not to rape. Teaching women how to tailor their activity that they are doing anyway such that they minimize risk is great (but teaching women to not go anywhere after dark is crap. I LIKE walking after dark, and I often walk alone; if I am ever assaulted while doing so it will NOT be my damn fault). but it’s SO SIMPLE to teach men, by having figures they respect do the teaching and not throw in any winkwinknudgenudge garbage, to only have sex with people who want to have sex with them.

    I do think the Tea Metaphor needs to be required reading for incoming freshmen (because it makes it SO SIMPLE), and that in addition to teaching our women how to be hard to assault, we need to be teaching our men that they have been lied to, a lot, about what sexuality and masculinity mean–by the media, by jock culture, whatever. I feel like about five years of 18 year old boys getting that message clearly, again from leaders they respect with no hedging or fudging or winking or nudging, would start to make a measurable change, and decades of women trying not to get raped hasn’t been particularly effective, so.

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