As I prepare to leave Dartmouth in a couple of weeks, I find myself thinking more and more about the positive ways in which I have changed and grown during the past four years -- particularly the last year -- and being continually disturbed by the things I had to endure before that growth took place and even more disheartened and angered by the thought of the struggles countless more women will face.
In particular, I am disturbed by gender relations on this campus and the rape and abuse that continue to take place everywhere. I am saddened by the fact that so many of the strong women I know are strong in part because of struggles they have already had to endure. There have been so many times over the past year when I have been talking to women I look up to for their strength and power and have learned that they already have histories of abuse and rape and assault.
It seems as if most people have to have either themselves or a close friend go through a traumatic event before they truly understand the struggle women face, and, if that is true, it is extremely frightening because it is impossible to see an end to the cycle of abuse.
There has been such a large increase in the awareness of abuse and of sexual assault that it sometimes seems as if things have changed a lot more than they really have. There is certainly a more supportive environment for survivors these days, but when I look around I see that many things have not changed at all. When I recently witnessed a woman being physically assaulted very publicly on campus, I was shocked afterwards to hear that many of the other people who had witnessed the attack thought that it was her own fault because it had happened before and she continued to date the man involved.
I suppose I had been naive in thinking that those opinions no longer existed or that, at the very least, they were rare.
It is still very risky for a woman to speak out about acquaintance rape, and even when people do acknowledge the existence of acquaintance rape, they continue to take sides based on whether or not they like the man who is accused. I was raped repeatedly last year by a "nice guy" who I had previously dated. He was a member of an organization I had been extremely active in since my sophomore year, and rather than dare to press any charges against him I left the organization. He is one of many men I know who speak out about the rights of women, denouncing other men who are accused of abusing women and then doing it themselves.
I am certainly not trying to say that most men here rape and batter. Most of my close friends are men, and most men who speak out about assault are not being hypocritical. I am saying that there seems to be a trend of being a "sensitive man" who helps his female friends through their problems with other men and in some cases even speaks out publicly against the abuse of women and then abuses his girlfriends and friends himself.
This is a trend that exists in many forums. There is an emphasis these days on showing our support of certain beliefs by writing articles and attending speeches rather than by living our lives in ways that reinforce those beliefs. Speeches and articles are wonderful, but only when they are not used as a replacement for changes in our own behavior. No struggle can ever be won if people are constantly changing their public appearances rather than trying to change from within.
The biggest responsibility every man has to women is to treat every woman he meets with respect and to never abuse or rape anyone. After that, perhaps there will be time for them to speak out about other men who are not doing that.
Most of the things I am saying have always seemed obvious to me intellectually, but when I was raped myself I was forced to question even my own beliefs and to realize that a large part of the population still thinks that women ask to be raped or beaten and that men are divided very clearly into jerks who rape and nice guys who never would.
