"The Hunting Ground" -social justice event

Yesterday, April 15, I went to see a film that was being played on campus. The film was called "The Hunting Ground" and is was about rape on college campuses. Before I watched the film I thought it was going to be a boring documentary but it was actually very interesting and informative. By the end of the film, I was completely shocked as to how the schools handled the rape problem.
One thing I noticed during the film is they only showed males as the "predators". The perspective of the victim's was mainly from females who were raped by males. They were a couple of male victims, but they were also raped by males. Girls rape guys too. A female can drug a guy for rape, just like a guy can drug a girl for rape. A female could even rape another female but that also wasn't talked about.

Another thing from he film that was really shocking to me was how the dean and campus faculty reacted to the problem. The victims would finally work up the courage to tell the dean about how they were raped and the dean would blame the victim. The dean would respond to them by saying things like "what were you wearing?", "you shouldn't have been dressed like that", or "you shouldn't have been out drinking". They would try to make the victim feel bad so they would keep quite about the issue. There would never be a consequence for the rapist, even if they were found guilty or had multiple complaints. The rapist was extra protected if they were an athlete or in a fraternity. The college always a had some excuse.
This film reminded me of so many articles we have read in class. It connects to "Safe Spaces' by August, "Privilege, Power and Difference" by Johnson, and "The Silenced Dialogue" by Delpit.

Rape complaints from Colleges

"Safe Spaces" mainly focuses on LGBT issues but I feel like it can relate to this as well because the main point is having a safe school community. Allowing people to get away with rape is wrong and unsafe for other students. The video pointed out that people who commit rape once have over a 90% chance of doing it again. By the school not expelling the rapist makes the campus unsafe. They didn't want to expel students for rape because then parents won't want to send their children there.
The males who had the most protection from the school were the athletes and the ones in fraternities because those organizations bring in a lot of money for the school. This really reminded me of Delpit's articles because of the culture of power. It this is showing that the administrators have power over the students and if the students try to stand up for themselves they get in trouble.
Lastly this can connect to Johnson's book. Johnson talks about saying the words will help solve the problem that has been avoided. This will help solve the problem because people will become aware of the situation. Faculty at this school didn't want the issue of rape to be discussed for multiple reasons. Anyone who tried to stick up for the rape victims were fired, this included teachers.

In conclusion, the film "The Hunting Ground" was very informative, there were many shocking facts that I was unaware of. I didn't realize how big of an issue rape was on a college campus. Once the film was over, the people in charge were passing out papers related to the topic. Two of the papers were articles: "Myths that Make it Hard to Stop Campus Rape" and "We Have More Than Just a Campus Rape Problem. There is Invisible Rape All Over". They also gave out a list of References and resources on sexual violence, the list ranges from organizations that are local to national. Here are a few: www.itsonus.orgwww.itsonus.org, www.nsvrc.org, and www.nomoreri.org.