Impact Of Rape Of Women On College Campuses

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Contra Costa College

The rape of women has been an issue for many centuries and the incidences of rapes continues to increase. However, people seem to have this mental vignette of a stranger attacking a woman in an alley or while she’s walking alone. Although this scenario is capable of occurring and has been experienced by some women, the majority of rape cases are acquaintance rapes – in which the female knows her attacker. And a majority of acquaintance rapes take place on college campuses. There’s many issues that arise when some think of a woman being attacked by someone she knows, especially if she had been previously intimate with that individual. The importance of the fact that rape is a crime should overshadow
That type of mentality however, the “1 in 36 college women is not all that bad” is what keeps the victimizing continuing in a vicious cycle. Not enough attention is being brought upon this issue, and most people tend to not care enough about such a tragic event until it is their friend, their child, or even them that is the next victim. Fisher et al. (2000) argue that if the rate of 1 in 36 women being raped were to be calculated for an entire 1 year, the data would indicate that 5% of women would be victims of rape in the college career. Larger institutions would have higher incidences of rapes; for example, a university with a 10,000 student populations may have 350 or more rape cases within a single academic
Rape victims commonly suffer from depression and anxiety. Part of the recovery process is the victim coming to terms with the assault and being able to label the attack as an actual “rape”. According to McMullin and White (2006), labeling the experience as rape is beneficial. Women ought to redefine what has happened to them so that they can attempt to move past, and recover, from it. Women who have labeled their experience as “rape” do indeed score better on psychosocial adjustment variables, and report less interference at work from emotional problems and less drinking. Although society benefits from labeling the incident as a rape, such as increased awareness of the power or rape and holding attackers responsible for their criminal actions, there aren’t that many benefits for the victim. Kahn, Jackson, Kully, Badger, and Jackon argue (as cited in McMullin & White, 2006) that women who choose not to label the incident as a “rape” have had less negative emotional reactions to the experience. This may be due to the lack of associated stigma that comes from labeling an experience as a rape. If one does not feel they have been raped, there is nothing for one to feel negatively or shameful