According to flyers posted across campus by the group, only 11 of 171 victims are known by the group to have sought help from the College administration.
The group is a "collection of upperclass students who are involved and care about this issue people who have been seeing and hearing too many instances of sexual assault," a member of the group, who asked to remain anonymous, said. She said that using names to identify the members of the group might exclude those who already have negative biases toward the members, doing the victims of sexual assault a disservice.
"It's so the community can better observe the message, not the messenger," she said.
The participant said that this is the first initiative the group has taken, though many students involved in the event have taken part in other campaigns for sexual assault awareness. They signed their blog post as the "Daughters of Dartmouth" due to the meaning of the term, not because it is associated with a certain group.
"Daughters of Dartmouth' is a title that is empowering," she said. "It's a term to reclaim the College."
The display has been "a few weeks in the making," but is born out of a "collective sense of frustration that finally found an outlet," she said.
Another student involved in the display, who asked to remain anonymous for similar reasons, said that the students involved chose to use dolls to represent victims of sexual assault in an effort to emphasize that each victim was once a child and to express the individuality of each survivor.
The group of approximately two dozen upperclassmen counted a total of 171 victims that have personally told them their stories of sexual assault and violence, but both anonymous group members said that the total number was not an attempt to count the number of victims at Dartmouth. Instead, the group's aim was to focus on the discrepancy between the 171 victims and the 11 who have reported their stories to the College, they said.
"This is a really pervasive phenomenon," the first woman said.
The group hoped that by placing the dolls on the steps of Dartmouth Hall, it could appeal to the entire Dartmouth community.
"Dartmouth Hall is a symbol of Dartmouth, and everyone is culpable," the first source said, adding that perpetrators of assault, bystanders and many other individuals are all responsible on some level.
Originally, the group planned to place the dolls on the steps of Parkhurst Hall, but realized that the move would target the administration too narrowly.
"Upon reflection, we realized the administration has been doing a really good job," the first group member said, pointing to recent efforts by the administration to involve itself in an issue that she said has little support from alumni. "We felt that there's more they can do, but there's more everyone can do."
The dolls were found to be a fire hazard on the front steps of Dartmouth Hall and were moved to the grass in front of the building.
Anastassia Radeva '12 and Andrea Jaresova '12, the co-chairs of Mentors Againt Violence, expressed their support for the activism supporting survivors of sexual assault, though they claimed no association with the group that organized the dolls.
They credited the initiative with not offending any specific subset of the Dartmouth community, saying that the display "asks the whole community to be more accountable."
Radeva emphasized that the number of dolls that represented sexual assault victims was a "very real number for Dartmouth," and said that the total number of victims was probably much higher. Fewer than 4 percent of sexual assaults that occur on college campuses are reported, she said, drawing attention to the many victims that might not be represented in the display.
Most students interviewed by The Dartmouth did not notice the dolls or did not understand the display.
Yannick Yu '15 said that although he had a class in Dartmouth Hall on Tuesday, he did not notice the dolls near the building. The display, though not noticed by many students, "aroused interest at the least," he said.
Other students that did not see or hear of the display said they doubted its efficacy because of its low-profile on campus. Katie Milligan '15, who also did not see the dolls, said that if the display had been better advertised, it would have had more of an impact and helped people understand the issue.
Anna Winham '14, who did know of the display, praised it for raising awareness of sexual assault for those who have not been affected by it, as well as for its creativity.
"It's a creative tactic that broke the visual monotony," she said.
Winham said that the display, however, was "certainly not enough" in the fight to combat sexual violence and assault.
Jaresova is a member of The Dartmouth Staff.
