A 16-year-old girl was raped in a Madison West High School stairway two weeks ago. When she returned to school two days later, she was physically attacked. At school, a place that is supposed to be safe, it is difficult to imagine how the incident could be any worse. Yet the story gets more horrifying; the same stairway was the scene of the rape of another 16-year-old girl 26 years ago.
After the first attack in 1976, Dane Country Circuit Court Judge Archie Simonson was removed from his position by an outraged community after giving a \boys will be boys"" speech and sentencing the three attackers only to parole and juvenile detention. He attributed the rape to provocative clothing and a general feeling of promiscuity in school. The stairway was never sealed off.
Today, newspaper articles describe the obvious concern and horror of parents, students and administrators and talk about how to make students safe in the future. They are talking about blocking off the stairway or rigging it with alarms. They, thankfully, are not attributing the attack to ""provocative clothing."" Strangely, however, they are not attributing it to anything. Also eerily, or perhaps for the sake of privacy, no one is talking about the girl or her health. No one is talking about the deeper or personal issues surrounding rape and sexual violence.
How far have we really come in dealing with sexual assault? Have we really developed beyond blaming women for rape because of provocative clothing or moved past the ""boys will be boys"" rationale? Resource centers, women's centers and action groups like Wisconsin Coalition against Sexual Assault, campus groups such as Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment and Men Opposing Sexual Assault all talk about progress made toward breaking the silence around this topic. But how far has mainstream culture come in dealing with it?
If you look up ""sexual assault"" on the Internet using multiple search engines, the results are appalling. Out of the initial 10 results listed, six are for attorneys; five for defense attorneys with such captions as ""Sex Crimes'Avoid Jail!"" Two sites were for defense home videos, capitalizing on women's sense of fear. Only two sites were devoted to sexual assault awareness or information. More in-depth searches yield mixed results. There are many more informational and advocacy sites for women and two sites for men, such as Men Can Stop Rape. However, two or three sites also come up attempting to discredit studies on frequencies of rape and sexual assault, using a phrase even sicker than the attorneys, ""rape hype."" The handling of the Madison West High School rape case and the mixed results of Internet searches speak to the ambiguities, uncertainties and downright contradictions in how this society is dealing with sexual acts of violence.
Our culture is not comfortable or open in talking about sexuality in a healthy or proactive way, let alone talking about sexual assault and rape. The stigma and guilt attached to sexuality for women and men prevent most people from reporting their attacks and deepens the silence around sexual assault. Sexuality, women's rights, gender roles and homophobia all need to be openly discussed and examined.
Studies of interactions between grade school children have shown that we are creating a culture of sexual assault. Women are taught from a young age to accept unwelcome encroachment into their personal space with no recourse from authority. Men are taught to use sex to gain status and to objectify women in order to bond with male peers. We are all taught that we have to fit neatly into one category or another and, while acceptance is growing, to many people it is still an insult to be thought gay when not.
Mainstream ideas about sexuality are far from promoting equality and communication. The destructive power and prevalent use of the word ""slut"" illustrate the precarious position women are in. If women do choose to be sexually active, they are often ridiculed and considered sluts both by other girls and often the very boys with whom they have been sexually active. If women choose not to be sexually active then they are cold and prudish. This has created an atmosphere where women cannot do what they really want. Men who are sexually active are considered ""pimps"" and are admired by peers. Men who choose abstinence are considered odd or homosexual. Men are also not supposed to show weakness; so male sexual assaults are even less reported than women's. The culture creates a dangerous paradigm where women cannot say ""yes"" and men cannot say ""no.""
There is a sexual assault committed in the United States every two minutes. A life and a family are devastated every two minutes. Rape and sexual assault will not go away by shrouding them in silence. We must break the silence because closing or alarming stairwells in schools will not make students safe. Two 16-year-old girls have had their lives changed forever; two cases have sent shockwaves through communities'but how many stories have never been told? What has changed? What are we teaching young people about rape? Don't get caught alone in a deserted stairwell, cross your fingers and be thankful it wasn't you?
