Female College Students Face Higher Risk for Rape the Beginning of the School Year
By Joanne Factor
As the new college year begins, students should be considering more than class schedules and reading assignments. Along with new classes, friends and opportunities come new vulnerabilities:
College women face a higher risk of sexual assault than do their non-college peers.
About 90% of sexual assaults are committed by persons known to the victims.
Each year about 2.8% of college women will face sexual assault. While that number may seem small, over the course of a college career a woman’s risk of attempted rape is over 20%.
The riskiest times for college women are the first few weeks of their freshman and sophomore years.
However, there are also many ways for college women to enhance their safety while participating in the full gamut of campus life:
Take a self-defense class to learn the most effective ways to recognize potential rapes and evade them, or fight back if necessary. Many college organizations offer classes, and many dorms and sororities are required to have some safety programming. Contact your college’s women’s center and organizations, and local rape relief agency, for their offerings and suggestions.
When you go out, especially to large parties, go with friends. Stay with your friends, and watch out for each other. Assailants will attempt to isolate their targets—don’t let them!
Make sure you have a way home. Carry extra cash and the phone number of a taxi service.
Most sexual assaults involve alcohol or drugs. Be wary of anyone who seems too happy to give you more and more to drink. And watch for stuff from the punchbowl—the alcohol content almost certainly packs a bigger punch than you’d guess from the taste.
When dating someone, watch out for controlling behaviors. These include making the decisions about where to go and with whom, telling you how to dress, and telling you with whom you may speak.
Coerced sex is rape. Sex without consent is rape. Rape is about power and control, not about overwhelming passion.
Watch your drink. Drugs can be slipped into any beverage. If you realize you’re feeling in a fog after only a drink, get to an emergency room.
Learn to set your boundaries and how to say no convincingly (a good self-defense class will include verbal and body language skills). While you may believe you’re trying to say no without hurting someone’s feelings, being polite or nice is often interpreted as “try harder.”
Trust your instincts and gut feelings. They are correct more often than is your logic. Many women intuitively recognize when something’s awry but cannot rationally figure out why, and later regret not listening to their gut feelings.
Girls Fight Back! by Erin Weed is a really good short book for today’s college women, with lots of tips and tricks to keep safe while enjoying the college life.
Look for free self-defense seminars on campus. If you can’t find one, ask for it. Better still, organize it! In many places student residences and sororities are legally required to provide several hours of safety programming. Work with women’s campus organizations. Most likely months to find self-defense programs are in October (Domestic Violence Awareness Month) and April (Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month).
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Joanne Factor, owner and head trainer of Strategic Living in Seattle, teaches personal safety and self-defense skills that empower women (and men) to do more of what brings them success, happiness and other good things (such as travel, move to a new city, send their daughters off to college, teach abroad, begin dating, or going out on the town with your best girlfriends, you get the idea) with lots more confidence and security. And more confidence and security brings more joy and success. Visit http://www.StrategicLiving.org for more information and current class schedule. |
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