Stop normalizing rape culture on college campuses

Editor’s note: This story includes descriptions of sexual assault.

There is a toxic sickness pervading Syracuse University, and I’m not talking about COVID-19. I’m referring to the glossed-over rape culture that leads to the sexual assault of 1 in 4 women in college. 

Our sugarcoated, perfectly packaged party lifestyle of binge-drinking and blackouts are breeding grounds for, to put it nicely, predatory behavior. It’s about time we recognize that and do something about it. Unfortunately, rape has become a rite of passage in the life of a woman. It seems to be an unspoken fact. A struggle that our moms, sisters, teachers, friends and even grandmothers know far too well. At the end of the day, the big question I have to ask is: Who protects our girls? 

Though it’s unsavory, there’s a high chance that there are survivors in your classes. There’s also just as high of a chance that there are rapists as well. If this feels jarring to you, perhaps we need to redefine what we view as sexual assault.

There’s a grand misconception about what rape actually is and what rapists actually look like. The sad fact is that rape happens where we’d least expect it: at home, your friend’s house, your dorm, a fraternity. It also happens with whom you’d least expect it: a boyfriend, friend, partner, acquaintance. 

So often we hear the “good guy narrative,” the idea that “it’s not all men.” But it’s about time we accept the cold hard truth: this is harmful complacency. 

The whole social system is complacent in an endless cycle of victimization of young girls. To put it simply, rape culture is just Greek culture. Rape culture is just party culture. We perpetuate it in every aspect, and it will remain this way until we take a stand against it. 

We don’t prepare girls for the stark reality of what they may face, albeit we shouldn’t have to. We don’t hold assailants responsible socially or legally for their actions, instead allowing them to hide behind the masks of organizations and brotherhoods. We belittle women who speak out, encouraging further emotional havoc. And we don’t prepare young men for these roles of power that they claim through ritualistic hocus pocus. 

The minute a young woman walks into a fraternity, she is under threat. And the minute a young man joins, there is an unspoken standard of masculinity that they are expected to uphold and perpetuate. It is not only normalized to take a girl home when she is far too intoxicated, it is encouraged. A typical party scene has girls dancing in the center of a dark basement on elevated surfaces with boys lining the walls, watching the scene while serving cups full of mystery juice. The drink’s sole purpose is to cause nights that girls will never remember while conveniently lowering inhibitions and resistance so boys can have nights they never forget. For what to the man could be deemed a “one night stand,” could also ultimately change the young woman’s life forever. 

These types of nights are so normalized and ingrained in our culture that women have a hard time labeling it as sexual assault and men have a hard time viewing themselves as abusers. But that is not consent. If you want to have sex with someone, wait until they’re not slurring their words, throwing up or unable to walk in a straight line. Wait until they don’t awake in the morning, scratching their head at the blank memory of the night prior and feeling violated in every fiber of their being. 

These experiences do not look the same for all survivors. It may happen at the bar, a tailgate, your own home. You could exist in cultural spaces, the music world, other countless organizations. You could be a member of a marginalized community. All stories hold space, and I want you to know I hear and acknowledge you. You have a voice, and you are not alone.

This is ultimately a battle of life and death. This may seem dramatic to the lucky few who have not experienced sexual assault, but the mental consequences run deep and violate not only one’s body but also one’s existence. Surely every survivor is different, but healing is nonlinear and sometimes never even takes place. Rape can often lead to self-blame, low self-esteem, depression, self-harm and post-traumatic stress disorder, to name a few. On top of that, resources are slim, and complacency is the norm. 

As a recent graduate, I’ve seen more than half of the women I know face the same damning fate, myself included. After I was sexually assaulted as a freshman by an older fraternity guy on one of my first nights out, I turned to an older girl for guidance. I was frightened at the lack of memory, bruises lining my body and disgust at hearing my assailant was bragging about sex with me in a frat bathroom when I hadn’t even remembered the night. That older girl turned to me and said, “Welcome to college.” 

Those three words will echo in my head forever. Thinking of myself that night prior to my assault makes me sick. I was disastrously intoxicated and encouraged to reach this point. I was lifeless. I was just 18 years old, fresh out of high school, completely trusting of this new organization’s world I stepped into. I was told they had my best interest in mind, and I was left vulnerable to the predatory cycle that continually silences women on this campus and worldwide. I reached out to older boys in the organization who nodded to these stories and would in turn shrug them off or comfort me in efforts to sleep with me. There was no accountability. So many of the older women around me were defeated and desensitized to the system, finding comfort in blissful ignorance. 

My story is not uncommon. My story is your story. I share it now, four years later, because I see that this vicious cycle has no end in sight unless we demand some kind of change. 

A logical person may jump to ask: Why wouldn’t you just report it to the police? Why not go straight to the university? Well, if one takes a step back, it’s pretty clear to see there’s a discrepancy between the number of reported rape cases and the occurrence of rape. Out of every 1,000 rapes, only 230 are reported, 46 result in arrest and only 4.6 in incarceration. 

Let me dismantle the fantasy of a fair judicial process right away because seeking justice is often just as traumatizing as the experiences themselves. This is not to discourage anyone from speaking their truth if they so choose, but unfortunately, it’s a common byproduct of the legal process. Not to mention the internal fear, guilt and harm the experience can have on a survivor. 

We are all so simultaneously frustrated and violated that sometimes the battle for safety, protection or even acknowledgment can feel like a shout into the void. There’s only so much women can do before men realize this is not just our issue, but theirs as well. We need to protect one another because no one else will. Especially on this campus. This is not an attack on the male gender, it’s a desperate call to action. It’s a demand to step up. Men must hold their brothers and friends accountable. You must teach yourselves and one another how to create safe environments for women, or don’t hold those spaces at all. Men have a responsibility to create a wave of resistance against this kind of behavior. Otherwise, you are intensifying it, hiding it and continuing the cycle of pain and abuse of power. It is up to our social systems to enact justice for survivors from the ground up. Ultimately, it is up to you and me. 

I know and expect that people will be upset at me for calling out these larger institutions, and I understand. However, as a victim of assault and the daughter, friend and descendant of so many other survivors, I have a responsibility to speak up. If you feel angry about that, I suggest you direct that anger toward dismantling the systems that create survivors in the first place and holding men who rape accountable, not the survivors brave enough to speak out. 

Ava Notkin ‘21