In my psychopathology class, my professor asked everyone, “if you had the power to end PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, would you?” ” Everyone in the room raised their hands. Expecting such a reaction, he then proceeded to ask the women to put their hands down, and the men to keep their hands raised. My professor paused for a minute to see all the men’s hands up, looked at everyone, and switched to the next slide. There, in huge letters, were the words, “Sexual Assault.”
I was surprised because I have never experienced a class where a professor dedicated 10-15 minutes to talk about sexual assault, its dangers, and how to prevent it from happening. I am writing this to tell you that those 10-15 minutes were some of the most important minutes of the whole class this semester.
In our class, we have just been talking about PTSD, its symptoms, etiologies, and potential treatment. However, the part that stood out most to me during that whole lecture was the fact that 50% of people who are sexually assaulted develop PTSD. That is the largest rate for any traumatic event; even larger than being in war. It was shocking, and the worst part is that it is easily preventable.
He first started telling everyone the definition of sexual assault, which is, “any form of unwanted sexual contact obtained without consent and/or obtained through the use of force, threat of force, intimidation, or coercion.” After he told us that consent is necessary, no matter what, and gave us the detailed description of The University of Michigan Policy on Sexual Misconduct by Students, where consent is defined as a clear, unambiguous agreement, and consent can be withdrawn by either party at any point.
My professor went to the next slide and looked around the room, looking especially at the men still raising their hands. He took a minute to do so until he read a horrifying statistic. He told everyone that 37.4% of female rape victims were first raped between ages 18-24. If this was not bad enough he read 3 more appalling statistics: 19% of college women experienced attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college, about 1 in 5 women (18.3%) of women and 1 in 71 (1.4%) of men experienced rape at some point in their lives, and 5% of both men and women report experiencing sexual violence besides rape (CDC, 2012).
After reading these statistics, my professor asked the men to keep their hands raised for one more minute because he had one more statistic to tell everyone: 23% of undergraduate women and the University of Michigan reported unwanted touching, 11.9% unwanted penetrations. He also continued by saying that women are at eight times more risk than men to experience sexual assault. My professor finally asked the men in the class to put down their hands, and repeated the words, “At the University of Michigan, women are at eight times more risk than men to experience sexual assault.” Although my professor knew these statistics beforehand, he was still shocked at these high numbers.
Despite the fact that sexual assault will not be a topic on our exam, my professor was willing to spend class time to talk about this issue. Many professors assume that writing these facts on the syllabus is enough, but I believe that it is not. I bet that the majority of students do not read that far into the syllabus. However, hearing a professor talking about it was impactful; the three hundred students in that room listened attentively and understood the gravity of the situation. Hearing someone talk about sexual assault has a lot more impact than reading about it. Also, hearing about sexual assault with 300 other students around you touches everyone more than learning about sexual assault on your own because you can can ask yourself questions like, “If 1 in 5 women experience rape in their lifetime, hypothetically, how many women is this classroom would have experienced rape?” Seeing things has a greater effect than reading things. For these reasons and more, I believe that every professor should dedicate a few minutes to talking about sexual assault on campus, its prevalence, and ways to prevent it because it is a real issue that can be stopped if everyone were properly educated about it.
