This week at DePauw University, Code TEAL is hosting a large-scale panel discussion focused on sexual assault and will be featuring members of the Interfraternity Council. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Code TEAL, we are a student-led organization that raises awareness of sexual assault on campus, promotes survivor advocacy, and encourages discussion on this issues (this may help explain why most of my articles cover these subjects). But let us return back to the subject of the panel discussion; this event is geared toward college men. Not every house has mandated that each member attend, and this fact leaves me with conflicting feelings. While I'm glad that most people aren't being forced or incentivized to go to our event, I do worry about the ones who will choose to stay home because they don't think this is an event they should attend. And to be honest, I don't know what people will do.
The last time Code TEAL hosted a major talk focused on men's role in sexual assault, we had one fraternity in attendance, despite numerous invitations to all houses, and I certainly wasn't the only one who expressed frustration at the apparent disregard to the issue of campus rape (the link to this story is here). I remember what most of the defensive arguments stated:
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"But Christina, you can't put this all on men. A lot of us aren't even the rapists."
"Stop blaming this whole issue on men."
"Well, we had homework."
Oh, we are well aware that most men aren't rapists and offenders. But according to the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence, approximately 99% of perpetrators in single-victim incidents are male, which seems to indicate that this is a male-dominated crime. Even if you as a male are not the one violating others, you stand as a role model for other males. As for the homework excuse, I would have liked to believe that you would take an hour out of your schedule to come listen to how you can help rid our campus of a legitimately serious issue. But, the choice was still yours.
As was stated by one of DePauw's professors, "What kinds of actions were [men] taking to address the problem of sexual assault? Were they organizing demonstrations, sit ins, and other events on campus against sexual violence that I wasn’t aware of?...Or is sexual assault so prevalent in our culture that students are complacent, and sexual assault is just background noise that takes a back seat to other problems?" I am challenging all DePauw men to attend the Code TEAL panel discussion this week. We can no longer allow complacency with regards to something so detrimental and severe as sexual assault.
