A Scientific Approach to Preventing Sexual Assaults on College Campuses

I was perusing the internet the other day and I came across this article on  the science of preventing sexual assaults on colleges. As I have mentioned in the past, this subject is very close to my heart. I have two daughters and three granddaughters, not to mention all the other women close to my heart.

Rape on college campuses is a very serious problem and this is a very interesting look at it from the viewpoint of science. Take a read and comment below on your thoughts.

The recent Stanford sexual assault case is just one of tens of thousands of such assaults that happen every year on American college campuses, which raises the question: What can men and women do to stop rape at universities?

The federal government took one step in 2013, with an update to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that requires colleges receiving federal aid to annually report to the government the number of assaults on their campuses, and to have programs on rape awareness and systems to assist victims.

“This is a first step, putting policies in place,” said Yolanda Moses, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. “But the cultural question is, ‘Why do we need these policies? Why is this a perpetual problem?'”

To prevent assaults on campuses, programs should begin when kids are still in elementary school, several sociologists told Live Science. Young children should be taught about consent, they said.

For instance, “You only pet the kitten when the kitten wants to be petted; and you only hug your friends when your friends want hugs; and you only knock down your sand castle when everyone who built the sand castle consents to knocking it down,” said Tal Peretz, an assistant professor of sociology at Auburn University in Alabama. “That creates this culture where you only engage with people in ways they consent to.”

So, as was listed in the article there are several areas that were explored in this scientific exploration of preventing sexual assaults on college campuses.

1. Put policies in place
2. Address Sexual objectification
3. Elevated Risk
4. Determine which prevention efforts work

In number four above the study revealed that by simply giving information to a control group did help, but when the other group was given sexual assault training their risk was cut in half.

I believe some sort of self defense tool or women’s safety device, such as the college extreme college survival kit or the ultimate personal safety kit for women, has the potential, when combined with training, to lower the risks even further.

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