April marks Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and campus departments are working to host events throughout the month to bring attention to the issue.
Catt Workman, program director for the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) and sexual violence prevention specialist, expressed how Sexual Assault Awareness Month can help work towards preventing instances of sexual violence.
“It’s about raising awareness and educating the community on the importance and significance of what does sexual violence even mean,” Workman said. “[It’s about] how best to support survivors and show up in your personal relationships and as a community member in a respectful way. At the end of the day, that’s the ultimate protective factor at reducing instances of sexual violence–that recognition.”
The month’s events begin with the Start By Believing Pledge Drive, which extends from April 1 to 30, and includes opportunities for students to take a pledge to express support for survivors on April 1 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and April 2 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the L.P. Young Student Center. The latter date coincides with the campus Health Fair.
Opportunities to take the pledge will also be offered at the Take Back the Night Rally and Vigil on April 15 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m as well as teal tea lights, a part of the Turn Campus Teal initiative, from March 30 to April 3.
The color teal has been used to symbolize support for sexual assault survivors and denotes that someone is safe to reach out to if one is in need, according to the Case Management Society of America’s website.
The Sexual Violence Prevention Coordination Team will also be co-hosting the Denim Day donation pickup on April 22 and Denim Day on April 29, in recognition of International Denim Day. Denim Day pins will be available alongside activities.
The historical significance of denim as a symbol for sexual assault awareness began in the 1990s, when an Italian Supreme Court argued in a case that wearing tight jeans implied consent, according to Denim Day’s website. Now, wearing denim symbolizes the movement’s work in ending victim blaming.
Workman said she and her team have already heard from faculty and staff interested in being filmed or photographed taking the pledge.
Workman explained what the programs at Keene State do to try to help prevent sexual violence.
“One of the cornerstones of our prevention programming is really increasing that recognition of what healthy behavior and unhealthy behaviors look like in real life,” Workman said. “Being able to name the behavior is critical and then having the skills necessary to intervene, those protective factors. We focus a lot on bystander intervention.”
Patricia Pedroza Gonzalez, women’s and gender studies department chair, agreed with Workman that Sexual Assault Awareness Month is important and addressed the ways it enters her field of work.
“As a professor, my role is to push about awareness, push about education,” Pedroza Gonzalez said. “Inside of gender studies, this is a topic that, even if you don’t want it, it enters in our field. In terms of curriculum, but also in terms of social actions. And also with feminist perspective.”
Pedroza Gonzalez also provided her feelings about Title IX, which refers to harassment and discrimination, and how she addresses certain narratives in her classroom.
“When we go to the part of ‘Frequent Questions and Answers’ from Title IX on drinking, it’s still showing that drinking is the problem,” Pedroza Gonzalez said. “As a feminist educator, I say that it does not matter if an individual is drinking at a party. That never is an invitation to assault.”
Pedroza Gonzalez criticized the narrative of putting blame on victims and said it enforces the perception that the victim’s behavior was the reason behind the assault. She explained how she likes to address the narratives behind assault and where the idea of blaming the victim originated in the classroom.
Pedroza Gonzalez said she has seen students be personally affected while reading about sexual assault in her classes, and she raised the question of “how do we take care amongst each other as peers?”
“This is still happening,” Pedroza Gonzalez said. “I think that any human being can understand when a student says, ‘This happened to me.’ And of course, at the same time, I don’t understand how people don’t see it. For me, every semester, there are one or two students affected.”
Pedroza Gonzalez also addressed the demographics of affected students on campus, and how many victims are both female and first-year students, and how gender and age correspond to the issue.
Female college students are three times more likely to experience sexual violence and are two times more likely to experience sexual assault than robbery, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).
Pedroza Gonzalez said she wants students to know that what they’re saying matters to her.
“I want the students to know that I care,” Pedroza Gonzalez said. “I want the students to know that my office is open all the time to talk. I want them to know that I can understand what that means.”
Chloe Erno can be contacted at
