Trigger warning: sexual assault
Every time I hear a friend recall when they have been sexually assaulted, the same train of thought runs through my head.
The emotions — a mixture of anger, rage, sadness and compassion for them — muddle together while a feeling of helplessness sinks in as I recognize yet again that there is nothing I can do to take away their pain. The occurrence has unnervingly become frequent enough that a sense of expectation has worn its way into the inevitable surprise of first hearing the story.
That doesn’t lessen the impact it has on me and certainly does not change the trauma, pain and damage done by their perpetrator. The simple reality that a person, often on this campus, cared so little about my friends, our classmates, that they would cause them immeasurable harm for their own pleasure is more than unjust, more than frustrating or upsetting. It is untethering. An emptiness starts to set in and you can physically feel a black hole forming in the pit of your stomach. That’s just from hearing the story, not being the survivor.
Last Tuesday, the Editorial board published a piece on the new Interfraternity Council (IFC) student-led taskforce that is working to understand the ways Greek life contributes to sexual assault on campus and how to make positive change in culture and policy as a result. We have a Greek system, in my experience, reinforced with clear socioeconomic disparities, a thriving culture surrounding alcohol consumption and a well-documented hook-up culture that, while a dominant narrative, does not encompass a majority of students.
The piece quoted current IFC president Max Schreiber saying, “We’re the only school in the country to have something like this.” Yet, the existence of such a taskforce is problematic and fundamentally reinforcing key aspects of our culture that continue to perpetuate sexual assault. There are no women - let alone survivors - on this task force.
The above quotation and others like it from a Chronicle article reporting on the taskforce’s creation make it sound as if IFC and its members are swooping in to save all the helpless damsels in distress on this campus while ignoring many other ongoing movements to combat sexual assault. Unlike collaborative movements for change, it relies entirely on self-policing of entrenched social customs and cultures of a privileged majority. The way this taskforce has thus far been formed is akin to a white man grabbing the microphone from a Black Lives Matter activist and leading the rally himself. In essence, it is a poor example of being an ally for survivors.
Every movement needs allies, but neither unfettered and undirected anger nor overt cooptation of the movement for one’s own purposes should be an ally’s role. The role of an ally resides primarily in our individual and societal responses to survivors.
The reaction one gives a survivor when they tell you about what happened is by far the most important aspect of ally-ship. I have learned this from experience. Channeling one’s anger into productivity requires empathy to spend time learning what survivors want, what the root problems are and ultimately how to lead as an ally by becoming incredibly supportive of the movement to end sexual assault without co-opting the movement for oneself.
Unfettered, unproductive anger from men and shaming can be more traumatic than the rape itself. We, as allies, have to re-empower survivors to make their own decisions and to take back power and control, the things that were sucked away by sexual assault in the first place. What matters is that we learn to become active allies that contribute to solving the problem on an individual and systemic level. What is productive is talking to other people, especially men, about the way they look at and treat women.
Simply put, being better or the first should not be our primary concern. Deconstructing the systems that perpetuate blaming and facilitate sexual violence while also collaboratively charting a way forward should be our foremost concerns.
We live in a culture that, at worst, celebrates and, at best, is complicit in sexual violence on this campus. The more friends I know who have been assaulted, women and men alike, the more I have come to recognize this reality.
The onus for prevention should never be put on the shoulders of those most at risk. How we respond as a society can cause far more damage than the trauma itself. And the responsibility for solving the problem should not be thrust upon the community most associated with causing it in the first place.
Sexual and partner violence is an epidemic, and epidemics are combatted by locating the roots of the problem, understanding the mechanisms surrounding it and unilaterally acting based on that knowledge.
We are fortunate to have a largely receptive administration and a core of passionate student leaders and survivors who continue to work to end sexual assault on this campus. But, if we hoped that True Blue or some orientation program would change the mindsets ingrained in students by our broader culture about sex, consent and the objectification of women, then we are truly lying to ourselves.
No IFC taskforce or special training session is going to truly change the corrosive and disgusting mentalities that cause sexual assault, that cause the trauma I continue to witness in my friends, and the damage done to society and to our collective humanity every time a person is taken advantage of sexually by another on this campus.
My hope is that we collectively can say enough is enough. All of us have a near 100 percent chance of knowing someone who is a perpetrator or has been sexually assaulted. It is our collective responsibility to respond to survivors positively and work to end sexual assault on this campus. An all-encompassing, campus wide commitment to declare that every person has a right to the safety and security of their body no matter what state they are in, where they are or what they are doing can be a start. If someone does not agree with this sentiment in practice, then they shouldn’t be a part of the Duke community.
We should believe survivors and support them with all the resources they need; that is fundamentally the most important role an ally can play. And we can also work to change the culture one person at a time to strive for a campus community where sexual assault is less a normative reality and more a shunned anomaly.
We owe it to the survivors, our friends, to do that much.
Jay Sullivan is a Trinity senior. His column runs on alternate Mondays.
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