Disclaimer: This article includes facts, statistics, and personal anecdotes from anonymous sources about sexual harassment and sexual assault. If these topics make you uncomfortable, please stop reading now.
Before discussing serious topics like this, it is important to understand a few things. A lot of people think that sexual harassment has to be something as aggressive as rape, but the truth is sexual harassment can be something as little as cat-calling someone on the street. Sexual harassment is defined as behavior characterized by the making of unwelcome and inappropriate sexual remarks or physical advances in a workplace or other professional or social situation. Those inappropriate comments you made to your coworker? Sexual harassment. Those unsolicited nudes you sent to your classmate? Sexual harassment. Touching someone without their consent even if it did not seem inappropriate? Sexual. Harassment. While there is a clear definition of sexual harassment, the same cannot be said about sexual assault as it is defined differently in every state. However, sexual assault usually refers to sexual contact or behavior, often physical, that occurs without the consent of the victim. Therefore, sexual harassment is any unwelcome or inappropriate advances or remarks, while sexual assault is non-consensual sexual contact or behavior. Now that we got that straight, let's start with sexual harassment: It is very difficult to give exact statistics of sexual harassment because the law does not protect against simple teasing or isolated incidents. Sexual harassment is only punishable by law if it is very serious, occurs frequently, or in the context of employment. However, a survey launched in January of 2018, by the nonprofit organization Stop Street Harassment, found that 81% of women report experiencing some sort of sexual harassment in their lifetime. Most sexual harassment cases are mild and not illegal. Still, these situations happen so often that some women, at least myself and most of the women I talk to, can't even tell the difference between a guy with good intentions, oppose to, bad intentions. "When I first started college, I decided to download Tinder. Most of the conversations went nowhere, but if I liked talking to a guy enough, I would give them my Snapchat to continue talking. I had to delete Tinder after a while because even if they seemed nice beforehand, the first thing most guys would do when I gave them my Snapchat is send a dick pic." Sexual harassment isn't just cat-calling or unwanted explicit photos, many things are considered to be sexual harassment. Requests for sexual favors, jokes about sexual acts or sexual orientation, pressuring someone to engage in sexual activity, unwelcome sexual advances, and unwanted touching are all examples of sexual harassment as well. "One time, I was in a college bar with my friends. We were dancing and having a good time when I felt a hand slap my ass very hard to the point that my butt was stinging a little bit afterward. When I turned around to look at who it was, I saw this guy that I didn't even know smiling at me. I asked him 'What do you think you are doing?' All he said before walking away is 'Don't pretend you didn't like it.'" Sexual harassment and sexual assault usually get lumped together into one, because some forms of sexual harassment overlap with sexual assault. Something important to understand about sexual assault is that, like sexual harassment, it can occur without clothes ever being removed. Some types of sexual assault include sexual touching, pinching, groping, and attempted rape. "I had a friend who was 14 and she was dating a guy that was 18. I think that should have been the first warning sign. Either way, we all became friends, and one day he asked me to come to the gym in my building. I said okay. We were on the stairs and out of nowhere he pushed me against the wall. He was way stronger than me because I was a skinny 14-year-old and he was a muscular 18-year-old. I kept telling him to stop, and he kept telling me that I would like it and that I should let myself go. When he tried to get into my pants, I took the chance to escape. Eventually, I told my friend and she left him." According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 1 in every 5 women report experiencing some sort of sexual assault. Other forms of sexual assault include physical violence, sexual fondling, forcible sodomy, and, of course, rape. "This [is about] one guy I met at school the day after I crashed my car. I was overthinking and he came to ask me if I was okay. He seemed like a nice guy, and I just said I had no one to lean on because I have no friends here. He said he would be my friend. We exchanged numbers and started talking on a friend basis until he asked me to go eat somewhere. In the restaurant, he started getting into 'How's your life?' 'How's your love life?' 'Why aren't you with someone? You are so beautiful.' We left the restaurant and he wanted to continue talking in his car. When we were in his car, he started taking my pants off. I told him I don't want to while holding onto my pants. He ended up eating me out and fingering me." Sexual assault can have lasting effects on the victim. The Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN) reports that 94% of women who are raped experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 2 weeks after the rape and 30% of women report symptoms of PTSD 9 months after the rape. RAINN also reported that 33% of women who are raped contemplate suicide and 13% actually attempt suicide. "It feels like a never-ending cycle. I felt like a different person while it was happening. I felt so powerless and I remember telling myself 'if I enjoy it, it is not rape.'" A huge misconception about sexual assault is that only men commit sexual assault, that is the opposite of the truth. Although men are indeed more likely to commit sexual assault, the results may surprise you. The National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, found that female perpetrators were reported in 34.7% of rape or sexual assault cases with male victims and 4.2% with female victims. Another survey, the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, found that women were more likely to experience abuse from male perpetrators, as were males who reported being penetrated without consent. But, when it came to other types of sexual victimization, 68.6% of male victims reported female perpetrators. "When we were like five or six, my sister and I went to daycare while our parents went to work. It was more of a house where they would take care of kids, but it was right across my parent's office. My parents trusted them since they were all women. They had a 14 or 15-year-old family member that would take care of the kids too. She would kiss us, touch us inappropriately, and would even try to get us to touch her. I knew it was wrong because she would do it in hidden places so I told someone else in the house and we never went back." The biggest misconception out there about sexual assault is that it only happens to women, at least that is what the media and general public seem to focus on. Now, I know that in this article, I tend to focus a lot more on the women's side of things but that's because the fact is, yes, women are way more likely to be sexually assaulted than men. According to RAINN, 90% of adult rape victims are female, but that does not mean there are not male victims out there as well. Earlier in the article, it was mentioned that 81% of women experience sexual harassment in their lifetime. Although the number is almost cut in half, that same survey found that 43% of men report experiencing sexual harassment in their lifetime. Statistics collected by RAINN also show, although the numbers vary a little in other surveys, that 1 in every 33 men will report experiencing attempted or completed rape, while 1 in every 6 women report experiencing attempted or completed rape. Furthermore, as of 1998, an estimate of 17.7 million women and 2.78 million men reported being victims of attempted or completed rape. The reality is that women ARE far more likely to experience sexual harassment/assault, but that does NOT give the public or the media the right to simply ignore the male victims who are also experiencing this. The heart of the matter is that every 73 seconds an American is sexually assaulted. Not male or female, not white or black. An American. And that is the real problem that we should be focusing on. If you or someone you know has suffered or is suffering from sexual harassment or sexual assault, please call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline (800-656-4673) to speak to a trained staff member or visit hotline.rainn.org/online to talk to a trained staff member online. Sources: Chatterjee, Rhitu. “A New Survey Finds 81 Percent Of Women Have Experienced Sexual Harassment.” NPR, NPR, 22 Feb. 2018, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/21/587671849/a-new-survey-finds-eighty-percent-of-women-have-experienced-sexual-harassment. “Statistics.” National Sexual Violence Resource Center, www.nsvrc.org/statistics. Stemple, Lara, et al. “Sexual Victimization Perpetrated by Women: Federal Data Reveal Surprising Prevalence.” Aggression and Violent Behavior, Pergamon, 28 Sept. 2016, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178916301446. “Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics.” RAINN, www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence
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I will address that this article was written on March 20th, 2020. Meaning that the information in this article is only accurate up to that date. This is important because, with viruses and pandemics, things change every day and new information may be discovered at any moment. With everything that is going on, I have decided to postpone or just completely botch my previous promised articles and write about the current national issue, aka the Coronavirus pandemic. I know you all may be tired of hearing about the virus at this point, but there is a lot of misinformation going around (shame on you fellow journalists spreading fear) so I mostly wanted to address why we should all be staying inside and avoiding big crowds as much as possible, but I will also be touching a little bit on where to get your information from, tips to protect yourself, and ideas of things to do during quarantine/social distancing. A lot of people, especially Spring Breakers, have not been listening to the recommended “social distancing” put out by the government since the virus hasn’t been “that bad” here in the United States, but the reason the government has been taking these measures now is because, during a pandemic, it really is better to be safe than sorry. What the government is trying to do, some of you may have heard of it already, is something called “flattening the curve” (example image attached below). The curve is the amount of people who get sick at a time versus the amount of days after the initial breakout, by flattening the curve we avoid overwhelming our health system, like what is happening in Italy right now. Italy did not take many precautions to the Coronavirus and so everyone got sick at the same time, thus overwhelming their health systems and hospitals. Doctors had to make the incredibly hard decision of who lives and who dies based on who was more probable to survive. They did not have enough beds, resources, or even doctors to be able to take care of everyone at once. Because of this, they have even surpassed the amount of deaths in China, where the virus first started spreading. The reason we are all being recommended to stay inside as much as possible is because by avoiding contact with other people, we avoid spreading the virus, and therefore avoid overwhelming our hospitals, this is what flattening the curve is all about and we have seen it work before! When the Spanish Flu started spreading in America in the early 1900s, the states didn’t know what to do. We saw it go two ways: Philadelphia and St. Louis. Philadelphia decided to hold a parade even with multiple cases of the Spanish Flu, two thousand people were dead just a week later. St. Louis took a completely different route: even before their first case was reported, they were already warning people to avoid large crowds. When there was the first outbreak, they closed the schools, public places (movie theaters, public pools, etc...), and cancelled all public events. By doing this, they were able to flatten the curve and keep the epidemic from exploding in one night. As a result, they suffered half the casualties Philadelphia did. (The red curve would represent Philadelphia and the blue curve would represent St. Louis from the previous example). It is almost unavoidable that most of us will get sick, experts are predicting 70% of Americans will catch the Coronavirus. But by staying inside and avoiding contact with other people, we can lower the amount of people that get sick at the same time and hospitals will not be overwhelmed. Hopefully by doing this and taking such precautions as the government has taken, our hospitals can take care of every patient and, untimely, end up saving more lives. One thing I hate the most about this whole situation is the misinformation and panic people are spreading. A lot of people read the news or media outlets for information on the Coronavirus but the only places you should be getting your information from are the CDC, WHO, and verified health professionals! I see news outlets asking celebrities what they think about the virus as if they are professionals on the subject. Most of the information I gathered for this article, and someone I 100% recommend to everyone, is from Dr. Mike on YouTube. He is an actual doctor putting out very informational content every week while also keeping it fun. He has been doing updates on the Coronavirus and addressing common misinformation being spread, anything he talks about in his videos can also be found through the CDC and WHO (which is where he gets the information for his videos). One of the reasons I’m not one of those panic buyers at Walmart getting toilet paper is because his videos actually subdued my fears about the Coronavirus. Please start educating yourselves from the right sources and let’s stop spreading panic! Something that Dr. Mike always says is “be alert, not anxious.” Basically, take the right precautions to protect yourself, because it is ultimately up to us to protect ourselves from this virus, and don’t panic. Panicking is the worst thing we can all do at the moment as there is nothing we can do about the virus other than washing our hands, staying inside, and stopping the spread. I’m going to give you guys a list of things Dr. Mike and some of my teachers at UCF have recommended to stay safe: 1. Wash your hands as much as possible. Hand sanitizer works as well but washing your hands is the best you can do. 2. Do your best to stay at home. ESPECIALLY if you are sick. The best thing we can do for this situation is staying inside and stopping the spread. 3. Avoid large crowds. The government says to avoid crowds larger than 10, but limiting your contact with as many people as you can is the goal. 4. Avoid commonly touched areas with your finger tips, like doorknobs. If possible use your elbows or another part of your body as those don’t touch your face. 5. Try to avoid misinformation. Like I mentioned above the only information you should be reading should come from the CDC, WHO, and verified health professionals. And now, here are a couple of tips of things to do while staying home: 1. At home exercises: many fitness professionals on Instagram and YouTube have started showing at home fitness workouts on their platforms. Have been putting off the gym? Well, now you got nothing but time hehe 2. Read a book: I have a lot of books I’ve been putting off reading in my bookshelf, and I know you guys do too. 3. Watch that series you’ve always wanted to: I have given myself a goal to finish all the Marvel and Star War movies/TV shows on Disney+, what’s your goal? 4. Group FaceTime your friends: You may not be able to hang out in person, but that is why cellphones exist (sorry Non-iPhone users). 5. Apparently Google has lifted its censors and below you will find a list of things to search that, according to Instagram, will blow your mind. (Creds to Sarha for posting this on her Snapchat)
7. Spend time with your pets (if you have any): I’ve been spending extra time with my ferret hehe 8. Do your homework: we all still have school and using the “I didn’t have time” excuse just won’t cut it anymore (sorry friends). 9. Get informed about random things: I don’t know about you guys but I love researching/learning random things. During the quarantine, I want to read more about Abnormal Psychology and the Psychology of Colors (future article as you may know). Just because I am a journalism major, doesn’t mean I can’t learn about psychology! 10. Learn to cook: I know many supermarkets ran out of food but I personally can’t cook and when they go back into stock, I intend on learning. Wish me luck (hope I don’t burn the house down). Anyways everyone, I hope you guys enjoyed. I know this was a little different than my previous articles but I feel like there has been so much negativity that I wanted to have a part that was serious and one that was light-hearted. Let me know what you thought! Stay safe everyone <3 |
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About my blog:This blog is not a weekly or bi weekly blog, I enjoy writing about things when I actually have something to write about! Throughout the posts you will see many different categories! Such as history, photoshoots, and popular topics. You can keep up with my blog by following my social media pages. Which can easily be found at the bottom of the "Home", "About", "Resume", and "Gallery" page!
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