I want to emphasize that it's not that these men are what we call rape-prone. It's that they're in a rape-prone environment. I think that's an important distinction. Fraternity men and athletes are no more likely as individuals to rape somebody - but there are a few characteristics of both fraternities and sports teams that speak to this issue.
Danielle Currier
When they look across the room and see that three-quarters of the people there have their hands up, it's like, Wow, I had no idea.
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What is important in talking about the culture of violence against women is that it is hard to talk about it - because a lot of people want to pretend that it doesn't happen, and that particularly in colleges, where you have very close social networks, it's something, if a woman is raped or sexually assaulted, she's not going to want to talk about it, because it's going to affect her friendship network. And the guy who does it might be in one of her classes - or be the friend of a friend.
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I think that's where the problem starts - is that we have put the onus on women to protect themselves instead of teaching men and boys that this is inappropriate behavior. If you focus only on the women, then you're doing what is called victim-blaming - and saying, somehow it's your fault that you got raped, and you need to prevent it.
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Men are the ones responsible for changing the environment. They're the ones who have to say, OK, I'm not going to force a woman to have sex. I'm not going to engage in this behavior. We need to change men's attitudes about how they treat women - even more than we need to teach women how to protect themselves.
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