Enough

CW: sexual assault, silence

I spent this morning working on a paper about training undergrads in bystander intervention to stop sexual assault. One thing about bystander intervention is though, it absolutely wouldn’t have helped me.

There were no warning signs – definitely not in public, anyway. And there was no one else around when it happened. I willingly went to his house. Eagerly, even. He was a dear friend, and I was so touched when he asked me to come over. Sure we had a history, and I’d loved him in some way, and we made out once, years before.

I went over as friends. Not that I wouldn’t have considered it in general but… there was just too much else going on. And I told him as much that night, too. He kissed me and I pulled back: “I can’t. There’s just too much else going on.”

Please don’t tell me what I should have said next. That was a no. And I figured no was enough. I thought no was enough. I thought no was enough.

I am sacred and more than enough.

He kissed me again, moving in, and I froze. I dissociated. As I said previously, I had so much else going on. I was so traumatized in so many ways already and had spent much of the previous six months pretty dissociated already so, I dissociated. So, that’s what happened.

---

When I told my closest guy friend a week later, he asked why I didn’t call him to pick me up. How do you figure out, at 19 years old, amidst so many other crises, that this particular crisis is worth calling a friend in the middle of the night to drive an hour to come pick you up? And if he does wake up and answer your call, and if he does come pick you up, then would he also return with you the next morning to get your parents’ car back? Because I drove myself to that place to begin with. Willingly. Eagerly. Having planned to sleep over, I was in no state to change those plans and drive myself home. I hate driving on a good day, but also like, being even a little intoxicated, and being in a lot of shock, no way.

I slept over, woke him up in the morning to get directions to the highway, and never spoke to him again.

---

He didn’t go to my college. He went to a college, and I went to a college, but it wasn’t the same college, and we weren’t on campus when it happened, and honestly I don’t even know if I would have thought to report it. I told my two best friends from my dorm because we talked about consent and sexual assault all the time anyway. I told that one guy friend who then asked me why I hadn’t called him for help. And there were a few other people I tried to tell but I couldn’t, or didn’t, or something. I didn’t tell my parents for many, many years.

---

Today I was working on a paper about bystander intervention programs and I was struggling, because it’s hot and I was working late last night and I’m tired. I was really struggling, and then I took a break and realized, I need to write this first. When I tell myself this story I tend to think of it as relatively mild, but I would never call sexual assault mild if anyone else were talking about it. I guess for me it’s as I said, there was so much going on in my life right then, so even at the time, it felt mild compared to the other things. But it had a serious impact on me, then and, in some predictable and some surprising ways, continuing to now.

---

About a year and a half after it happened, I was lying on the table in one of many physical therapy appointments, as the physical therapist was trying to decipher the odd patterns of tension, inflammation, and pain in my body. He asked me, carefully, if I’d ever been sexually assaulted. I said no. I had spend so much effort keeping this secret that I just said no instinctually. I went numb; I knew I was lying. To this day I wonder what I might have learned about my body, and what health care I might have received, if I were able to answer truthfully sooner, or if he were able to stay with the question long enough to hear the real answer.

I do believe he saw something real. The place he was looking, the injury he was examining, that was a real injury. That was a real thing that happened. And it hurt.

I am sacred and more than enough.

So are you.

---

There’s no particular institution I can ask to #JustSaySorry. But Wagatwe Wanjuki and Kamilah Willingham are doing exactly that, addressing Tufts and Harvard, respectively. Follow what they’re doing over the next few weeks and send some cash to their org, Survivors Eradicating Rape Culture, to support them in this exhausting work of action and healing, healing and action.

Addendum: I am now involved in fundraising for this organization -- please do contribute! Feel free to reach out to me with any questions.

Including – but not limited to – sexual and romantic relationships

Dear University of Virginia,

Read my blog, and then you'll see why I want to join your Center to study youth relationships with peers and adults. Relationships matter. A lot. To me. And yeah, I do all this sex ed stuff, but really that's all about relationships, too. Seriously. You can check out my bad-ass academic articles and all but still, read the blog. Connection, empathy, #feelings, love, community. I'm in.

With hope and an open heart,

Miriam R. Arbeit, PhD

I emailed the above letter to my best friend, and went back to writing a formal academic cover letter. My formal writing often flows better if I simultaneously have a document open in which I can say exactly what I need to say, on my own terms. Eventually, I crafted this:

My work thus far has illustrated the barriers to connection that adolescents face at multiple levels of the developmental system, including in their self-conceptions, in their sexual or romantic relationships, in their family and peer relationships, in the ways in which they are treated within youth-serving institutions (e.g., schools, health care), and in the messages they receive from their cultural context. My next steps involve deepening my study of empathy and diversity within youth-adult and peer relationships and across in-school and out-of-school-time settings. For example, I want to examine how the developmental process involved in building empathy may or may not be related to other aspects of emotional and relational skill-building. I also want to examine how youth and adults can form authentic and respectful connections across social and structural differences, such as gender, race, and language. I believe that these steps will support my future plans to do curriculum and program development with school-based and out-of-school time programs to promote youth thriving and facilitate safe, supportive, and fulfilling relationships including but not limited to sexual and romantic relationships.

Huge shout-out to my amazing colleague-friends who gave me job app edits. It still takes a village, even – or especially – at age 30.

And now I get to study that village!

I will be a postdoctoral research fellow at Youth-Nex, the UVa Center to Promote Effective Youth Development, directed by Patrick Tolan. I’m working with Nancy Deutsch and Amanda Kibler on the study of youth development through interpersonal relationships (hence the above rant). There are two main projects, and a bonus pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Amanda Kibler’s project that I’ll be working on is Languages Across Borders: Building Positive Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Networks in High School. It is aimed at promoting positive development for youth who are English Language Learners through strengthening their school-based relationships with peers. Nancy Deutsch’s project that I’ll be working on is the Study of Important Youth-Adult Relationships. It examines youth experiences within relationships with important non-parental adults. Obviously if you want to talk more about either of these projects, just let me know!

And oh, the pot of gold at the end of this already gorgeous academic rainbow. Nancy Deutsch is collaborating with Futures without Violence and the Harvard Law School Gender Violence Program on a comprehensive training curriculum for institutions of higher education to reduce and address sexual violence on campus. So like, yes. That’s what I’m trying to do. This is the work I want to be doing in the world. Dare I repeat: Connection, empathy, #feelings, love, community. I'm in. My heart is exploding with hope.

I now have a job and an apartment in a place I’ve never actually been. But I hear it’s beautiful.

I’m moving next month. On my own… don’t worry, I’ll be asking for lots of help. It’s taken several villages to get me this far, and I may be physically leaving those particular villages for the time being, but I’m a big fan of Facetime, and I’ve got lots of plans for finding new villages down in Virginia. Did I mention that I’m already on an email chain with the other postdocs at UVa’s Curry School of Education? A warm, welcoming email chain. I’m so excited. I’m going to miss New York, for real, and also I’m so excited.

Charlottesville, Virginia. Come visit!

Publication Alert: A Skills-Based Model for Promoting Adolescent Sexuality Development

I published a theory paper in the journal Human Development. In the paper, I present a model for thinking about adolescent sexuality in terms of skills – what young people know how to do and how young people act, in and through sexuality. The model explains the following skills…

• Sexual Selfhood: Desire, Ethics, and Identity
• Sexual Agency
• Sexual Negotiation: Consent, Protection, Pleasure
• Sexual Intimacy
• Sexual Empowerment: Boundaries, Coping, Analysis
• Sexual Advocacy

Emphasizing sexuality skills over specific sexual behaviors allows us to remove “intercourse” from the center of a research agenda on adolescent sexuality development. In this way, I decenter concepts such as virginity, marriage, and heterosexuality from how we think and talk about young people and about sex overall. Focusing on skills raises questions about how to facilitate skill development for all young people, whether they are sexually active in particular ways or not.

I am honored to have this article published in Human Development. I am also honored that the journal elicited commentary from two renowned scholars in the field, both of whom expressed support for the model and provided me with inspiring feedback.

Lisa Diamond discussed:

• The need for a cumulative life span approach
• Expanding the focus on biological processes
• Grappling with gender variation
• Gender as a product of sexuality
• Greater attention to sexual-minority development
• The meaning of meaning-making

I am particularly moved by Diamond’s suggestions for how to use this model push the interrogation of gender, sexism, and sexual orientation in the study of adolescent sexuality. She writes about the need to research the “interplay between gender and sexual questioning,” particularly for transgender and gender non-conforming youth, saying that the model “provides a framework for reconceptualizing gender questioning as adaptive and even normative” (p. 298). In addition, she suggests attending to the role of binary gender socialization (differential systems of expectations and rewards for men and women) in shaping young people’s skills for sexual negotiation and, in turn, how their experiences of sexual negotiation may shape their sense of their own gender. Furthermore, she provides several examples of how the model can be applied to supporting sexual minority youth not only in their sexual identity but also in being sexual and acting upon their sexual feelings.

David Moshman discussed:

• Developmental change
• Relational developmental systems
• Promoting adolescent sexuality development
• Promoting sexuality development beyond adolescence

Specifically, Moshman discussed the value of the model for expanding the notion of sexuality education, given that “secondary schools can and should contribute to sexuality development” (p. 290). Moshman also asserts that the model can be applied to colleges and universities addressing sexual assault, in order to not only respond to sexual assaults as they occur, but also “to reconcile such responsibilities with the responsibility to educate and promote development” (p. 291). Sex ed in schools and campus sexual violence prevention have long been personal and professional interests of mine, and I am excited to apply the skills-based model to these pursuits.

Here is the Table of Contents for this issue, which contains my article as well the two commentaries. Please contact me if you have any questions, or if you have trouble finding the full text article.

I look forward to drawing upon this article in my future research and applied work, as I enthusiastically explore the implications of this work for understanding and addressing sexism; for supporting both gender and sexual exploration for queer, trans, and questioning youth; and for transforming the ways in which educational institutions constrain and facilitate the sexuality development of the young people in their care.

References

Arbeit, M. R. (2014). What does healthy sex look like among youth? Towards a skills-based model for promoting adolescent sexuality development. Human Development, 57(5), 259-286.

Diamond, L. M. (2014). Expanding the scope of a dynamic perspective on positive adolescent sexual development. Human Development, 57(5), 292-304.

Moshman, D. (2014). Sexuality development in adolescence and beyond. Human Development, 57(5), 287-291.

“Benign” Rape

Warning – this story contains explicit descriptions of sexual violence.

The writer of this piece wishes to remain anonymous. She sent her story to me to share publicly in case her reflections can help someone else. I’m sharing an edited version in my weekly column, The Debrief, as part of a series for April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The editors of that site requested that I remove the explicit details before posting it there. To remain true to the story as the writer wanted it told, I am posting the full piece below.

I thought after my first experience that it would be over. That I would be smart enough to not put myself in those situations again. I would no longer be naïve; I would no longer be desperate. I would no longer be that girl. Yet, as I have grown older, as I became less desperate and less naïve, it still happened.

I was 20 the first time. It was Halloween and I dressed up as Loki from Dogma with one of my best friends as Bartleby. It was actually a pretty good costume. We went to a party hosted by friends of friends, and I met him. He had longer hair than I would have preferred, but he wasn’t unattractive, and I liked the attention at the moment. We talked, invited him to the Rocky Horror Show event that I managed at college, and things kind of moved forward after that. I cannot actually remember if we ever went on any dates, but at one point I went over to his apartment for dinner and a double date with his roommate.

As the night drew to a close, we went into his bedroom. Clothes came off, things started to happen. Then the question came. “Are you ready? Do you want to do it?” My body was telling me yes, my heart and head were screaming, “Is this the man I want to lose it to?” I said yes. He went into the bathroom to get a condom and while he was gone, I realized that I wasn’t ready. That he wasn’t the one I wanted to lose it to and basically: what the fuck am I doing here. When he came back from the bathroom I told him that I’m sorry, I can’t do it. I’m not ready and you could tell—at least I thought you could tell—that I was freaking out a bit. He told me it was okay, and we started making out again.

As we were making out, with him on top of me, he started trying to have sex with me. I remember trying to push him away and of course not succeeding. This man had way more power than I did. All of a sudden he pushed in. But I realized he pushed in a different spot. He raped me anally. Now I didn’t scream, I didn’t push him off me, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even sink my teeth in somewhere to get him off me. No, instead, my mind left my body. I was in so much pain, I was crying and all I could think of were shining rainbows and bunnies. I kept thinking to myself: “find your happy place”.

He finished. Got off me and went to the bathroom. I just laid there. My eyes had no more life. I felt like my spirit was gone. It was as if not just my body was raped, not just me as a person, but also my soul. He came back from the bathroom to tell me the condom had broken and that he would pray for me. All I could think was, “Jewish people don’t say that, and I’m Jewish.”

For six weeks after that, I stuck with it. Having him force me to have sex every night he came over, finding ways to push him physically off me even though he was stronger than me. Trying to deny and deny what was happening to me. Until finally he put my head against the dashboard and stood up, stuck his penis in my mouth and made me give him a blow job. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I tried to get him off me, and all he wanted was to finish. I finally realized: “Who am I? This isn’t me. I am not that girl who gets sexually abused.” Soon the flashes of reality came back to me, the choking, the helplessness as he holds down my arms and my only weapon are my legs, my fear, it just kept hitting me. Finally he came, I started chocking, and I kicked him out. Told him to get out of my life.

I felt like I learned my lesson, and I would never let that happen again. I would be stronger, no more fear. I would stand up for myself.

Well that turned out to be true bullshit. Things kept happening. Men forcing sex on me, men forcing their penis inside the ass when I didn’t want it. I would repeatedly say no, no, I don’t want it… and then my favorite line: “Oh honey, you know you’ll like it. How do you know unless you try it?” Then of course lube is on and it’s in. As they grunt and move back and forth, I am again in excruciating pain, almost in tears. They can’t understand why I bleed so profusely during and after.

When I explained my rape to someone they said: “Oh, so it was a benign rape.” Why was it benign? Because my clothes weren’t ripped off? Because I didn’t kick and scream at the top of my lungs? Because I did not tear my nails in his skin while running to the cops?

No, I didn’t report my rape or my abuse. No, I haven’t reported anything I have gone through with these men. 

There is nothing about my rape that is benign. Benign rape is just as bad as “bad” rape. If that is even a term.

Questions run rampant: Can I ever find a relationship that is normal? A relationship that is healthy? A man who won’t force anything? Someone who will respect me? Give me the love that I deserve?

I don’t know the answers. But I am tired of these situations. I am tired of constantly feeling like maybe it will be all right in the end. It’s not all right.  None of this is okay.

The Boston Area Rape Crisis Center provides free and confidential services to victims of sexual assault, survivors of sexual assault, and their friends and family. The hotline is a 24-hour service provided to help anyone affected by sexual assault: (800) 841-8371.

Jackson Katz responded to my email (and here's what I wrote back)

Hi Dr. Katz,

I deeply appreciate your taking the time to respond to my email. I am going to take another opportunity to express my concerns with more detail and clarity, in response to the issues you raised in our personal correspondence.

In terms of not serving queer folk:

I agree that MVP does great work to address harassment that targets sexual minority and gender variant individuals. As I want to emphasize, I think MVP is in a very powerful position to impact violence perpetrated by and through heteronormative masculinity. In contrast, one of my major concerns, as I will explain further in a moment, is about the experiences of transgender and gender variant folks who might actually be in the room during an MVP workshop. Another major concern is that people who have or will have same-sex relationships will not realize in MVP that sexual and relationship violence can happen between two women or between two men, as well. Such work may not be within the goals of MVP as a program, but I do think there are steps that MVP can take to address and support these needs.

In terms of silencing survivors in the room:

This point is tricky. As a sex educator myself, I struggle with the ability to provide a space in which survivors can receive strong support without identifying themselves, and, in addition, to make space in which survivors can choose to identify themselves and use the power of identification to push back against the silencing and shaming cultural norms in our society. It’s about actively structuring my teaching based on the assumption that in any given group, there will be people in the room who are survivors of various forms of violence. Addressing people who are survivors only as potential bystanders can be guilt-inducing and embarrassing. To be a male ally to women who have experienced sexual violence requires a trauma-informed curriculum and approach.

In terms of reinforcing the gender binary:

I completely agree with you that gender neutrality is counter-productive. To talk about sexual violence, we need to analyze gendered power dynamics in history, society, and in our lives. And I appreciate that the MVP policy is to allow people to self-identify, as in, if someone identifies as a man, he can go to the men-only break-out group, and if someone identifies as a woman, she can go to the woman-only breakout group. But I'm wondering, what about someone who doesn't identify as either a man or a woman? Or someone who identifies as both? Such people exist, and they matter. But I do not see them within the MVP curriculum, and that scares me. I don't know what to do about it, either. I have a lot of ideas, and I also recognize the complexity. So at this point I am working to name what I'm seeing. To render visible what is now invisible.

In terms of the need for more comprehensive sexual violence prevention:

Here is my question for you: What does MVP do to "set the stage" for an expansion of comprehensive programs? I can see all the fabulous ways in which MVP is a strong program to start the conversation, to address the most resistant leaders and to start building social norms that would facilitate further sexual violence prevention work. However, in reality, I picture schools and colleges saying "well, we do MVP, that's our sexual violence thing." Thus, in practice, MVP could very well be the sole source of sexual violence education in many communities. That's why I'm voicing my concerns. My question is, what can MVP do to be a better ally? When MVP does work with mixed-gender groups, the people in the room who aren't the hetero/masculine men (who were the original target group of MVP) are not being prioritized in the conversation. Interestingly, these are the very same people (women, queer folk, gender variant folk) who are not being prioritized in society at large. So what is MVP as an organization doing to directly link schools and campuses with programs that will address the needs of women, people who have same-sex relationships, and people who are transgender or gender variant?

The broader question I'm getting at is: What does it take to be an ally? What is the imperative on those of us with power to truly open spaces in which we can directly hand over power to those who need more of it in order to be safe, in order to speak up, and in order to exist? How can I be a better ally to others? How can I ask you to be a better ally to me?

How do we prevent men's violence against women without recreating the sexism we are trying to end?

"How do we have men and women working together on preventing men's violence against women without recreating the sexism we are trying to end?" 
--Jackson Katz, at the Mentors in Violence Prevention Bystander Intervention Conference at Northeastern University, May 31, 2012

Dear Jackson Katz,

Great question.

Here’s my short answer: Currently, you are indeed recreating the sexism you are trying to end.

Here’s my long answer: Thank you for having the wherewithal to recognize the complexity and challenge in being a person with privilege taking leadership on issues of systemic oppression and violence. Thank you for your leadership, thank you for your decades of work, and thank you for continuing to ask yourself how you can be a better ally.

What I say in this blog post may be read as a criticism, and I want you to know that I am criticizing you because we are on the same team. We have the same mission. As we work towards this mutual goal, I believe I have a perspective that you need to hear. So, let’s get coffee (or the internet equivalent, if you’re back in Cali by now).

Yesterday I was at the MVP Bystander Intervention Conference, and I’ve also participated in the MVP Institute training program as well as taught several workshops myself in the (distant) past. I have a lot of respect and affection for the work done by MVP. I personally have gained so much from your organization, including some of my favorite workshop activities addressing gender and systemic violence, and that’s why I am so invested in seeing it do good work now and in the future.

For my readers: Jackson Katz founded MVP in 1993, to recruit male student athletes as leaders in ending men’s violence against women. Yes, just men’s violence against women. Not all sexual violence, not all gender-based violence. That’s fine. No one can do everything, maybe. The MVP approach is to address men as potential active bystanders—to talk to men about why stand up as a bystander, and possible ways to intervene in sexist and violent behavior. Calling other men to understand men's violence against women as a fundamental social justice issue (see The Macho Paradox), Katz and MVP have brought their work to sports teams, fraternities, and the military.

Back to Dr. Katz: I’m grateful that you recognize the role that masculine role models can play in reshaping masculinity and addressing men’s violence. I can’t walk into hockey team locker rooms and talk to them about sexual assault. The NFL isn’t inviting me to speak with their players about rape. You are getting into those spaces and opening up conversation, and I’m impressed and grateful.

That said, Bystander Intervention training is NOT a comprehensive sexual violence prevention program. Bystander Intervention should NOT be promoted in mainstream spaces as a priority over actual skill-building that addresses actual people of all genders as people with bodies, people with intimate relationships, people with the capacity for sex and for love. Where are those people in Bystander Intervention training? I understand the importance of getting your foot in the door by addressing everyone as potential Bystanders so participants aren’t as defensive. But your approach is actively silencing those people in the room who may be more than potential bystanders—they may be victims and survivors of sexual or relational violence. Where are those people able to express their lived experiences in your workshops?

Furthermore, when you split up the participants into groups of “men/boys” and “women/girls,” to talk specifically about “men’s” violence against “women,” you are erasing the existence of trans* and genderqueer people. Erasing them. There is not room for people with non-binary gendered experiences and identities within the curriculum you use. What are you going to do about that? That is a major problem. It’s a problem that is the Achilles heel of your intervention. You cannot expand so much. You cannot be everyone’s solution.

When MVP comes to “mainstream” spaces and coed spaces—spaces that are not these hyper-masculine communities that were the original location of this Bystander Intervention—then you recreate the sexism you are trying to end by silencing the voice of survivors and by rendering invisible those living outside the gender binary.

 What are you going to do about that?

From your ally,
Mimi Arbeit

I am a Feminist (Finally!)

I write this piece in honor of International Women’s Day and Feminist Coming Out Day.

I am a feminist, but I didn’t always call myself one.

I didn’t call myself a feminist in kindergarten when I told the boy down the street that we should have a playdate, even though he thought I wouldn’t like anything he liked since I was a girl. I said, I have dinasours and we could play with those.

I didn’t call myself a feminist in third grade when the boys organized a soccer game during recess, and I said I wanted to play. They were confused, but I had been playing soccer for years, and I insisted.

I didn’t call myself a feminist in seventh grade when some of my friends started pinching their bellies and saying they felt fat. I thought they were weird (and gorgeous).

I didn’t call myself a feminist in tenth grade when the boys on the track team teased me about another boy and without missing a beat I told them to stop it, seriously, not cool and not okay.

I didn’t even call myself a feminist in eleventh grade when I learned to teach workshops about how sexist jokes and reinforcing gender stereotypes lead to sexual harassment and violence against women. Because I thought to myself well, the gender binary is the problem. Separating women and men into different categories is inherently detrimental, and we should just destroy the binary and discard the categories. The exact wording of the label “feminist” didn’t seem to allow for that.

I didn’t call myself a feminist until college. I didn’t call myself a feminist until I was an undergraduate at Columbia University and campus organizing against sexual violence was based at a women’s center at Barnard College (an all women’s college): The Columbia/ Barnard Rape Crisis/ Anti-Violence Support Center. I was, I admit, upset that the work I wanted to do was in such a place because I thought, since high school, that the binary was the problem and that this structure would reinforce it. But my training as a peer educator at Columbia/ Barnard challenged me to grapple with the tensions inherent to feminist activism: yes, the gender binary is a problem and yes, we need to advocate for the rights of women—both, and. And, females, in our society face different socialization pressures, different emotional education, different kinds of sexualization than males face. And, females are more likely to be sexually abused or assaulted than males are. And, males are more likely to perpetrate sexual abuse or assault than females are, because we live in a patriarchal society and are immersed in rape culture and an epidemic of physical, sexual, social, emotional, and economic violence against women and girls.

And, I am a feminist.

I am a feminist because I listened to stories, and I read books, and I spoke with mentors and friends. And I grappled with the truth: we cannot truly get rid of the gender binary without also working to get rid of sexism. We cannot truly achieve gender liberation, sexual freedom, or economic prosperity until we tackle the patriarchy head-on and transform rape culture into a culture of personal agency, mutual consent, and universal human rights. Yes, I believe all humans are real humans, and I believe we need to protect the fundamental human rights of all humans. That’s why I’m a feminist. Finally.

What is Rape Culture? An exploration of terms.

After I posted in November about rape culture on college campuses, a curious reader asked me a seriously of strikingly simple and stunningly intelligent questions: “Are men in college inherently complicit in rape culture? Are college men complicit in rape culture simply because they want to sleep with college women? Does rape culture overshadow every joke college men make about sex?”

First, what is rape culture? This blog post is really long, but it's one of the most popular depictions of what this concept, "rape culture," means. For an act to be complicit in and to promote rape culture, it does not need to include an act of rape, necessarily.

Rape culture does not necessarily overshadow every joke college men make about sex, but it likely overshadows most of them. Not every college party is necessarily complicit in rape culture, but it's likely that most of them are. Not all college men are by definition complicit in rape culture, but if they do not want to be complicit in rape culture then they must actively educate themselves and pursue justice. And the same goes for women — for all of us.

Rape culture is tied into many other systems of power and privilege in our society. Most obviously, it is wrapped up in sexism (the power of men over women) and heterosexism (systemic structures of heterosexuality and the assumptions about what it should look like when men and women get together, i.e., he asks her out and not the other way around).

Like other systems of oppression, words and actions that are complicit in rape culture are the norm. They are invisible, unnoticed, because they are dominant. Yes, extreme examples get called out-- but the less extreme examples seem normal. Furthermore, the less extreme examples are so similar to most other things we experience in our lives that it is so difficult to call them out as wrong. We see them as just parts of life. By identifying rape culture within the dominant culture of America, we gain the power to name these aspects of the “norm” as hurtful and harmful.

Rape culture can be promoted in multiple layers and in multiple ways. For example, to advertise a college party, one could design a poster to make it clear that all people attending the party will be encouraged to exercise sexual agency. However, what music will be played at that party? Rape culture is rampant in rap music and other popular party tunes. So, there are layers.

In order to throw a party that is not complicity in rape culture, the thrower of said party is going to need to work at it, to be obvious about it, because the assumption, our norm, is rape culture. I'm thinking of a birthday party I attended last year in which a number of things were made explicit, such as, the aspect of the theme you chose for your outfit did not have to be based on your gender. In addition, giving and getting consent was made explicit during the party games. However, the music thing was/is still an issue...

So it's not an "in or out" kind of thing—is something part of rape culture or is it not... Here’s a parallel: We can be anti-racist—we can work against racism in our daily lives and in our society—but we can't be non-racist, we can't claim to be colorblind because that is nonsensical given the prejudices of the society in which we live.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere Safe to Party

Dear Eve,

I know what you mean. I know, and it breaks my heart. I know because I once studied, slept and partied on a college campus, and I know because I have read about other college campuses. I know that college can be a time of extreme empowerment and extreme disempowerment.

I know because this morning I got an email from my university with news that a sexual assault taking place in a fraternity house was reported this weekend.

The Golf Pros/ Tennis Hos party theme is clearly sexist and objectifying of women. However, when the fraternity advertises a party by saying, “Everyone makes mistakes, but not all mistakes are bad,” that is evidence of rape culture. That is part of a culture in which unwanted sex is actively expected of girls and then dismissed as a “mistake” and promoted as “good.”

I know that evidence of rape culture is ubiquitous on college campuses.

What I don’t know is how, why, and what can we do about it?

I apologize for my silence since you posted on my blog one month ago. Your post upset me and moved me from the moment I read it, and I have thought about you and your words regularly since then. i am sorry that I have been silent. We cannot be silent.

How did you feel when you saw the advertisement for that party? What do you think went through the minds of girls who had friends in that fraternity, who were looking forward to that party, who talked for hours with their friends about what tennis ho outfits they could wear, but who noticed their friends made no comments about whether or not mistakes would be made that night, and what makes a mistake good or bad, and how to choose for yourself what mistakes to make.

It’s hard to be a woman on a college campus these days. It’s hard to find sexual agency and to feel safe. I don’t feel we are safe when I see those posters. I don’t feel safe, and I don’t feel that any woman who attends that party is safe. At the same time, that doesn’t mean that woman should not attend those parties. Because we should dance and drink with the best of them, and make great friends and great memories. But we should be able to go to parties and still have our bodies and decisions respected…

we should, but that is not yet the case for most women at most parties.  

Eve- what can I do for you and your friends? What can the health services staff and the women's center staff and other people on campus who want to help you feel safe and help you access empowerment--what can they do for you? What can I do for the girls at fraternity parties at my own university, to help them?

Furthermore, what can we say to the frat boys who made those posters and hosted that party?

Thank you, Eve, for sharing. I encourage you to share more.

Yours,

Mimi