Students speak out against rape

By Nicole LaPrade

Nearly 100 people attended a rally that promoted awareness of violence against women last Thursday.

Participants of Santa Clara's sixth-annual Take Back the Night met in the Bronco and proceeded to march in the rain past dormitories and through the surrounding neighborhood. The group of 45 held candles and chanted.

They could be heard saying: "the streets are ours, take back the night."

The student march, along with the "Survivor's Speak," an open-mic event, were among the highlights of Sexual Assault Awareness Week.

Speakers at Survivor's Speak included Lisa Millora of the Office of Student Life, philosophy professor Larry Nelson, a rape crisis counselor from the YWCA rape crisis center and Michael Maxwell, a columnist for The Santa Clara.

"Statistics tell us that one in four women from the age of 14, until they finish college, will be a victim of a rape or an attempted rape," Millora said. "If that's the case, we have 4,500 undergraduate students. More than half of them are women,"

Millora described the resources available to students on campus, such as the advocate program.

There are 15 female faculty and staff members who are trained and available to support students through Santa Clara's sexual assault and rape procedures. They are available to students 24 hours a day.

Both consent and sexual assault are defined and listed in the student handbook. There's also a sexual assault victim's bill of rights. One includes a victim's right to be informed of available campus resources.

According to Santa Clara's 2003 campus safety reports, one forcible sex offense occurred on campus and four on public property.

That same year at Loyola Marymount University, there was one reported forcible sexual assault that occurred in a residence. And at the University of San Diego, there were three reported forcible sexual assaults on campus.

Professor Nelson spoke of the link between pornography and sexual assault and rape. He said that through both hardcore and softcore porn, women are seen as objects for the pleasure of men and therefore lose their individuality.

"Every man must look inside his heart and see if he carries this image of women with him, and if he does, he should work hard at purging it from his life," Nelson said.

Maxwell, a senior, is an active member of the 1 in 4 peer education program where male students educate other male students about how to help a victim of rape or sexual assault recovery.

He was one of the first five members to get involved with the program when Millora began it at Santa Clara last year.

The group, now consisting of 11 male students, gives hour-long presentations to men on campus on how to help friends who are victims of rape and sexual assault throughout the year.

Maxwell said researchers surveyed focus groups before and after seeing the presentation and seven months later. They found that three-fourths of the men whom they determined to be potential rapists had changed their way of thinking after watching the presentation and still thought that way seven months later.

"The way I look at it, R.E.P.P. (Rape Education and Prevention Program) is good for teaching women how to avoid rape, how to be careful, what to watch out for- but the men's program cuts it off at the source," Maxwell said.

About 30 people attended the "Survivor's Speak" open-mic, and Maxwell finds it unfortunate that so many went to the rally instead.

Last year Maxwell said that he was one of the speakers in at the open-mic night and told a story of how someone he knew fought off an attempted rape.

"The guy didn't know that she took kick-boxing and she kicked the crap out of him. I think that stories like that need to be told because it seems like the only stories we hear are the ones where the offender was successful," Maxwell said.

Junior Carolyn McClure has attended the open-mic and the Take Back the Night rally and feels that participating in the events shows support for victims of assault.

"I know I would want people there to support me if it had happened to me," McClure said.

* Contact Nicole LaPrade at (408) 554-4546 or at nlprade@scu.edu.