Challenge #13: College & Rape Culture

Students at Dickinson College protest the administration's
 approach to sexual assault. 

It's April 30th. That means, in one day, seniors across America will be making their final commitments to which college or university they'll attend next year. I personally made my decision yesterday, coming down to the wire like always. I was blessed with a variety of strong, academically talented schools to choose from, which meant that I made my decision based more on the atmosphere of each campus. I weighed the social life of kids on campus and happiness levels and extracurricular of the people there.

I never really considered my own safety - that was a job left to my mom, who relentlessly pushed me against the University of Chicago, because she was worried about the neighborhood.

That safety isn't just limited to the surrounding area of a school. Now, it's permeating into the colleges themselves with staggering statistics of rape and sexual assault being unveiled, especially on top-tier campuses. My mom casually mentioned to me, after a parent panel at Georgetown University during an admitted students’ weekend, that sexual assault had been brought up. I asked her what had been said, and she responded that the officials had said it was pretty normal for a college campus – not great, but not terrible. That ‘normal’ statistic for Georgetown is as high as one in four women experience sexual assaults on campus, according to the National College Health Assessment. To me, as that’s where I’ve decided to attend, that number is a scary prospect and especially the fact that it’s considered normal.

The issue has been put into the spotlight recently, as April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month and because of a letter written in the Harvard Crimson about her experience with Harvard after a sexual assault. I read it when it was first published, and was disgusted. Granted, Harvard has rejected me so it never factored into any decisions I made but it definitely worried me for what I could face when I stepped onto whatever campus I chose. Similar universities have come under fire, such as Tufts and Dartmouth.

However, hope is not lost. Campuses are taking steps to tighten security and increase the repercussions students face if they are the perpetrator of a sexual assault. At Georgetown, I will be part of the first class to participate in a sexual assault education workshop during orientation. I wouldn’t say I’m excited for it, but I think it will be incredibly beneficial and eye-opening, and will hopefully save young women and men from the traumatizing experience.

On a national level, one of my favorite feminist blogs and the inspiration for this post, Feministing, has reported that the federal government will take more steps to further implement Title IX, a law that prohibits sexual discrimination in education. The reforms will include naming schools who are under investigation publically to help with evidence collection and other measures to increase transparency.

I’m excited to see all of my friends and classmates decide their futures, and I hope that their futures will become safer as these policies are all implemented.

Cia♀,

Charlie

Women and the Environment

Painting of a Mother Nature figure

Women and the environment have gone hand in hand for most of human civilization. Early societies often personified nature as a woman in religious traditions like the Greek Gaia, who gave birth to the Earth and the universe, and that still continues today with modern Mother Nature. Women are commonly associated with manipulating the environment and its resources for survival, like getting water and planting gardens to feed the family. They make up 51% of agriculture workers worldwide, according to the United Nations Population Fund, and that varies from 50% in Latin America to 80% in sub-Saharan Africa, meaning they have a large impact. There’s even a body of literature about it – ecofeminism!

This means that women are the ones most easily affected by environmental destruction and other environmental issues like climate change. As the world has developed, women have had to do more and more to stay afloat – walk farther for water, because local rivers have dried up or been polluted, or struggle to replant a crop on land that’s suffering from soil erosion or pesticide overuse. For example, female flower workers in Colombia are exposed to 120+ chemicals per day, many of which are illegal in first world countries, and in India women spend 4-5 hours per day looking for firewood which, before the effect of deforestation, they would only have to look every 4-5 days.

The connection between women and the environment has been recognized by the UN through various meetings of the UN Environment Programme focused on the role of women. The meetings have concluded that women are essential to sustain the environment but that women worldwide lack access to the resources necessary. Women are suffering the effects of contaminated water and food, and passing it onto further generations through breastfeeding and other natural causes without any knowledge of what to do about it.

 

Wangari Maathai

There are some strong cases where women have been the main advocates for environmental sustainability and have created real change. The Green Belt movement in Kenya started in 1977 with the planting of 7 trees. The organizer was a woman, Wangari Maathai, who would go onto win the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts and over 51 million trees have been planted since to slow the deforestation and soil erosion in Kenya while also providing economic opportunity for women. Other examples include the Nine Seeds Movement in India, which was start by women and advocates for organic agriculture and the development of seed banks.

Through increased agricultural education of practices like crop rotation women can continue to have a great effect on sustaining the environment in a way that is healthy for both the Earth and the growing population. Women have been undervalued in environmental efforts and can have a huge impact if given the opportunities. The OECD has proven that women consume less than men and care more about the future of the environment, and organizations should be doing more to nurture that care for the future.

Cia♀,

Charlie