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It’s Time To Talk About The Realities of Rape (posted 1 July 2001)
During the summer of 2001, the news came out that three women had been attacked at Auburn University by a serial rapist shortly before the end of the semester. The University, rather than taking the time and effort to contact Auburn students and their families about the risk to women on campus, put out a perfunctory set of condemnations, comments from the police, and Safety Measures
for individual women to take. With the laudable exception of comments from Safe Harbor Women’s Center (whose daily work is to provide advocacy and counseling for survivors of sexual assault), the University’s response
suffered from all the flaws that coverage of rape routinely suffers from, and we in AWO were angry and disappointed that the University was recycling the same old rape myths and treating this as a PR problem rather than an issue of vital concern to its mission as a University, and wrote this letter in response. It was published in the Opelika-Auburn News in July.
To the editors of the Opelika-Auburn News and the Auburn community:
Last week the Opelika-Auburn News reported that Auburn University police believe that a serial rapist has attacked at least three women on Auburn University’s campus. As advocates for women we at Auburn Women’s organization are especially horrified and saddened by this report.
Sadly, we also know that these three attacks are only the tip of the iceberg. The National Institute of Justice estimates that on a campus the size of Auburn’s, men rape women about 350 times every year.
The police printed a set of Safety Measures
for individual women to avoid attacks from strangers. Since nine out of every ten rapes on campus are committed by a classmate, boyfriend, or acquaintance of the victim, why do the guidelines only talk about stranger attacks?
With epidemic levels of rape in our community, why don’t we talk about the realities that make Auburn unsafe for women and what we can do to change that, instead of shifting responsibility to individual women’s behavior?
Why does the University tell women to avoid dark places rather than taking the responsibility to improve the abysmal lighting on campus?
Why does the University complain about the slowness of reports rather than taking the responsibility to provide more sympathetic and responsive system for reporting sexual assaults?
We call on our community to unite in working to end rape in Auburn-Opelika. Beginning next semester AWO will launch a campaign for Auburn University to take a leadership role in this effort by remaking it as a safer space for women through the implementation of comprehensive education, disciplinary policies, and resources for women’s health and safety. For more information or to offer your help, contact Auburn Women’s Organization at awo-list@auburn.edu.
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