Kinjo Kiema, a sophomore majoring in political communication, is a Hatchet columnist.
You may have seen the series of “It’s On Us” campaign videos that GW recently released. There is one piece focused on the GW community at large, along with others featuring members of the Greek, multicultural, LGBT and multireligious communities. In the videos, top Student Association leaders, members of student groups and well-known campus faces stare into a camera and pledge to intervene and help prevent sexual assault from occurring.
Although I’m glad to see conversations about sexual assault happening on our campus, this sort of message, which is focused on bystander intervention, is missing the mark.
“It’s On Us” doesn’t target the perpetrators, but any and every anti-sexual assault campaign should. It’s the responsibility of everyone to respect boundaries, and it’s on the University and the justice system to hold people accountable if they commit a crime.
Telling women to drink less so they can avoid assault, for example, does not stop rapists from targeting people. The person will often just target someone else.
Encouraging students to watch out for their peers is a good first step, but this initiative alone cannot end widespread sexual violence on campus.
The videos follow the lead of the White House, which originally released a PSA of its own featuring a host of celebrities. They urge those who see sexual violence, or escalation toward that type of situation, to step in and say something. The campaign assumes that if more people are aware of the problem, they will be encouraged to stop potentially dangerous situations.
But even if people want to step in, they may lack the skills to do it effectively and safely. We have to ensure we’re actively training bystanders and giving them the tools to intervene before we can expect this effort to be successful.
At this moment, when sexual violence is being discussed so widely, “It’s On Us” does not aim to accomplish any tangible goals. As students, we should be advocating for the University to create and release the results of in-depth surveys about the issue, make presentations about consent mandatory for all fraternities, provide better resources for survivors or work toward any number of real solutions.
It’s certainly beneficial for students to step in if they think a fellow student is in danger. However, the actions of bystanders alone will not end the problem of sexual assault on college campuses.
And it’s all well and good to pledge to do an honorable thing, but that doesn’t mean much if it isn’t followed by concrete action that might actually make a difference on a campus-wide level.
Maybe it’s time to question why we are so hesitant to directly target the perpetrators, when in reality, it’s on them.
