The following piece discusses sexual violence.
How do you effectively spurn an assaulter when they’re constantly in an overlapping social space with you?
How do you confront an assaulter after hearing multiple accusations about their behavior, yet see them suffer no social consequences?
What do you do when that person is your friend’s classmate, but your friend chooses to remain in their life? What if they’re your partner’s teammate? Your friend’s chosen roommate?
For students, one of the clearest means of responding to sexual violence is social ostracization. However, the issue with isolating sexual abusers, particularly within small college campuses such as ours, is that there is typically at least one — if not many — mutual points of contact. Approximately 80 percent of victims of sexual assault and misconduct know their perpetrator. For each charge of assault, there seem to be substantially more positive anecdotes that legitimize the perpetrator in the court of public opinion.
How many people have heard somebody described as a “great person, but touchy when they’re drunk?” How many have described their friend in such a way?
How many students have grabbed the waist of somebody they’re attracted to at a party, without that person showing or verbalizing explicit sexual interest?
During a sexual encounter, how many have introduced an element that was not mutually agreed upon before sex, such as choking, spanking, name-calling, and digital penetration?
I use gender-neutral language here, but well over 90 percent of sexual assaulters are men, though I do not want to minimize the suffering of those who have been harmed by women or gender non-conforming people.
In my time at the College, I have experienced all of the above at the hands of men. I’ve had my voice called “sensual” and other charged words, unprompted and in casual conversation. I am touched against my will at parties at least once a semester. After a wardrobe malfunction, an acquaintance spoke explicitly about my body numerous times in the following months, always when we were in the company of other men. Off-campus, I had a “friend” offer me a place to sleep after a night out, then make a pass at me though I was visibly intoxicated.
The accumulation of these acts of disrespect and corporeal violation is humiliating at best and dehumanizing at worst. To apply exact terminology, I have been sexually harassed and assaulted dozens of times while at the College and throughout my life. Such a number is unfathomable, so I ignore it for my own well-being. There is little solace in knowing how many share my plight.
The question then becomes one of accountability and of changing campus culture. The oft-repeated “hold your friends accountable” stands as a given, but, what else can be done?
I am not averse to reproach. I’ve made efforts to remove perpetrators from my life. However, when speaking face-to-face with people I know have been accused of assault, I am agreeable: I do not list their accusations, and at times, I smile. A large part of this can be attributed to a lack of bravery, and some of it can be attributed to the way women are socialized. In any case, I am complicit in the campus-wide normalization of sexual violence.
This complicity extends from the individual level to the institutional one: The College has failed to uphold accountability for the perpetrators of sexual violence by making statistics about Title IX proceedings inaccessible and failing to provide adequate infrastructure to prevent and address sexual violence.
One means of providing accountability is through transparency. However, publicly available information on the number and resolution of Title IX cases at the College is lacking. In my research for this piece, the most recent data on Title IX cases at the College that I could find was from 2022, discussing proceedings against students who have long-since graduated. Additionally, I found (with excessive effort) a dataset on student attitudes toward sexual assault, conducted half a decade ago.
Why has this information been made less readily available, in comparison to previous years? Why does it take six clicks to find relevant data after searching “Williams Title IX”?
While I understand that the College could face criticism if it makes such information more visible, the safety of victimized students should outweigh fears of reputational harm.
Transparency could serve as a starting point for trust.
The fact remains that many students do not report incidents of sexual assault. Of those that do, few choose to participate in the full investigative and adjudicative process. In the aforementioned 2022 report, only 15 percent of victims opted into the College’s Title IX process.
This is likely due to a variety of commonly cited reasons: fear of retaliation, traumatic avoidance, uncertainty, minimization of their experiences, and self-blame. However, I posit that one of the most central reasons is a lack of faith in the College’s ability to effectively and sensitively handle incidents. Students do not report to avoid reliving and extending their trauma to little avail. This fear is not unfounded, given the recent reports of the College’s numerous alleged Clery Act violations.
Another means of addressing the College’s culture of impunity for sexual violence could be to facilitate mandatory regular conversations about sexual violence.
Students on varsity teams are currently required to participate in annual discussions about consent. I cannot personally verify this training’s efficacy, but it’s key to note that this subsection of the student body likely participates in at least four such conversations over the course of their time at the College, while for non-athletes, this discussion is limited to one lecture during First Days and a follow-up with their entry. Approximately two-thirds of the student body is not mandated to have conversations about assault and consent after their first-year fall.
Though there are clear social associations of “jocks” and hyper-masculine team culture with rape culture, athletes are far from the only perpetrators. The College’s current spaces for support and conversation about consent are limited. The labeling of the Rape and Sexual Assault Network (RASAN) as inactive on the College’s website creates a barrier to accessing the services it is intended to provide.
The onus should not lie on a student organization — by nature subject to year-to-year variability — to assist survivors. The College’s Office of Intimate Violence Prevention and Response (OIVPR) — formerly Sexual Assault Prevention and Response — previously offered a hotline and workshops available upon request. This office is not well-promoted. Furthermore, in November, it was left vacant following the departure of its last staff members. Students seeking assistance have been directed to the Elizabeth Freeman Center in Pittsfield, and calls to the number of OIVPR’s hotline have been rerouted to Campus Safety and Security.
Such limited staffing at the institution is unacceptable. Nevertheless, less formal methods of harm recognition could promote students’ well-being.
A solution could be a collaboration between OIVPR, RASAN, and Integrative Wellbeing Services to provide monthly group sessions for those who have experienced sexual violence. This could empower survivors, and perhaps encourage them to speak up — especially if it is revealed that there are repeat offenders.
The College could also facilitate further conversations by conducting an annual survey asking men if they have committed certain actions that fall under the labels of sexual harassment, assault, and rape. Such a survey could include incidents described by survivors of assault. After the survey, a group discussion facilitated by other men could allow students to speak openly about their answers and could provide guided and mutual recognition of potential wrongdoings.
If statistics show that one in four college-aged women have experienced assault, where is the accompanying statistic of perpetrators?
To hold conversations about sexual violence, we must first become familiar with unambiguous definitions and then apply them precisely in daily life. Studies have shown that male students often admit to committing violent acts, but do not identify them as assault. Many participants explicitly condemned assault, yet admitted to doing or wanting to do things that meet the definition of sexual violence. Many participants who underwent rape prevention training failed to see its application in their daily lives, viewing rapists and assaulters as “the other.”
This phenomenon lies at the heart of the issue. Most women have experienced assault or know somebody who has, yet somehow most men claim not to know any assaulters.
While bias in self-reporting likely contributes to this, I believe there is another issue: The men who are committing these actions see their actions as innocuous and spontaneous, and thus do not label themselves or their friends as assaulters.
To excuse these men, labeling them and their behavior as merely “weird,” “bad with women,” or “having allegations” is to foster a culture of complacency rather than denunciation.
As I approach my final week at the College, I reflect on how rape culture has remained largely unchanged during my time here. I implore you to research multiple definitions of informed consent, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. Reflect on your own experiences and potential complicity, and speak candidly with the men in your life.
Above all, I implore men to initiate conversations with women about sexual violence and consent. Ask if you or your friends have ever caused harm or discomfort. Ask what you can do. Embrace learning and accept pushback against harmful mentalities. Hold yourself accountable.
Cheyenne Willis ’24.5 is a French major from The Bronx, N.Y.
OIVPR provides phone numbers, websites, and in-person sites for various local and national resources.
Additional opportunities for conversation can be found with Integrative Wellbeing Services and the RSO Masculinity, Accountability, Support, and Consent (MASC).
Correction: The print version of this article and the version of this article originally uploaded to the web contained an incorrect version of the final paragraph at no fault of the author. It was also missing important context in the paragraph beginning “The College could also facilitate further conversations by conducting… ” The piece was updated online to reflect the correct version on Jan. 29 at 10:22 a.m.
