Students on the Sexual Assault Task Force and other student organizations met at the Dean of Students’ office last night to discuss the relationship between alcohol and sexual assault on campus.
The focus group was led by Devon Malick, an intern of Culture of Care, Dean of Students office and the drug and alcohol information center, OASIS. Malick will be working to pilot a curriculum based around sexual assault prevention. The focus group was shown the New Zealand-based video “Who Are You?” which focused on bystander intervention.
The video featured a night out for two friends that began with a pregame at a friend’s house and progressed to a bar scene. Throughout the video, different bystanders were identified: the friend, the stranger, the bartender and the roommate.
As the video progressed, no bystanders intervened. At the end, the night was set in reverse to show what each bystander could have done preventatively.
The future curriculum would be based off a video similar to “Who Are You?” set at IU.
The focus group was asked for suggestions on how to make this video relatable to IU students. Students suggested adding a variety of scenes of where sexual assault could happen including dorms, house parties, fraternities and bars.
Sophomore Carmen Vernon, Feminist Student Association treasurer, suggested that switching the focus from bystanders to the perpetrator would be effective in changing the culture of sexual assault.
“I’d like more emphasis to be put on perpetrators, whether they’re men, women, trans, whatever gender,” Vernon said. “I feel like we focus a lot on bystander intervention, whereas if we just learn to respect each other’s bodily anatomy I feel like a lot of these situations ?can be avoided.”
It was also noted that the video focused on a perpetrator who was a stranger to the victim. Vernon suggested adding a scene where the perpetrator was an acquaintance.
“You don’t want to box it in and say ‘this is what sexual assault is,’” Vernon said. “You want to show that you can be sexually assaulted by ?someone you know at a party.”
73 percent of rapes committed were by someone the victim knew, and 38 percent of rapists are known by the victim, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
Perpetrators are not ?hiding in the shadows; they’re friends. Victims are not wandering into dark alleyways; they’re neighbors.
Culture of Care and other preventive programs work within student groups to change how they think about sexual assault within their specific communities.
This is more effective in generating discussion for ways to intervene and challenge their group norms, Assistant Dean for Women’s and Gender Affairs Leslie ?Fasone said.
“Obviously we want to reduce the risk,” Fasone said. “But one of our ways in doing that is to teach people to be active bystanders so that within their group they know when they don’t see ?something, they say something and they do something.”
Bystander intervention was introduced because students expressed a need for it, Fasone said. Students continually asked about how to intervene, but what they needed was the confidence to do so, Fasone said.
“To really change this culture, I think students have a lot more power than they utilize,” Fasone said. “You guys can make an amazing impact on ?campus.”
