Do you feel safe at home? Do you feel safe walking alone? What are the causes of fears and discomfort?
People (usually women) are taught that walking alone is not safe because there are many cases of people being harassed or sexually abused.
It has reached the point where these types of things are happening in schools which is a place that should let students feel safe. Right?
People are taught how to defend themselves, what to wear, where not to go, what is appropriate to say, and a whole variety of other defensive techniques. However, society and parents should be teaching students that sexual assault is never okay. By teaching students how to avoid being harassed, society is spreading a victim-blaming culture. It shouldn’t matter what kids wear.
Every 98 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted and there are 321,500 reported rape victims each year in the United States. These are just statistics of the reported victims.
The data shows how common sexual harassment is and how mainly women are impacted by this epidemic. However, just because women are the majority, we can’t dismiss the fact that this also happens to men.
The difference between the cases with men and the cases with women is that the men are sometimes praised or even mocked for having these experiences happen to them. This isn’t the case of “men trying to make everything about themselves”, but it’s about making sure that people are aware that this also happens to men and it should not be celebrated.
There is not a definite way to stop this because it’s highly unlikely that it will stop completely. All we can do is educate people and hope that they figure out right from wrong because sexual assault definitely goes under “wrong”.
By Diego Medina, Staff Writer