thinking about it
I got an email last week from the university where I am still a student -- not the one which employs me -- about how I had to complete an online training before the start of December. The email (slightly redacted) went like this:
I hope you have had a successful start to the academic year. In an effort to continue to provide you with important education regarding the issue of sexual misconduct, all second-, third-, and fourth-year $University students, as well as our graduate and professional students, on all $University campuses are required to complete an annual online education program. The deadline to complete the training module is Dec. 1, 2015. If you do not finish the program, a hold will be placed on your account.
The name of this online program is Think About It: The Way Forward. This training module is self-paced, so you can start and stop the course as often as you would like. When you return, the course will open to the last page visited. Completion times will vary, although you should expect to spend at least 30 minutes engaging with this material. Think About It covers topics including healthy relationships, partying smart, and sexual violence.
It is important to provide this type of education to you at different points throughout your college career. As you grow and develop through college, you face new opportunities and challenges all of the time. As your experiences broaden, it is beneficial to receive continuing education as you navigate different risks and strive to make healthy decisions. This training module is an outcome of a key recommendation of $University's Presidential Committee on Campus Sexual Misconduct, which studied the university's programs and policies related to this issue.
If at any point, the material contained within the program produces discomfort, please visit $University's Sexual Misconduct Resources website for support and resources.
I had thoughts! They go here:
(Disclaimer: I'm describing this from memory, because I'm not going back through that thing.)
First thing: This training could not have been more obviously geared to the traditional 18-to-22-year-old college set. I would be surprised if half the people mandated to take the training fell in that category. When I taught there, anywhere from 25% to 75% of my students in any given class were of non-traditional age, and a whopping all of my Ph.D classmates were. So hooray, you've just made maybe half of your student population slog through something that has no relevance to where they are in their lives. Spot-on!
The entire thing had a weird bent to it of 'what do you do if you're a friend to someone who's having these problems?' Which is good, I suppose, since a lot of people don't know how to respond. But it also made it feel so very removed, almost like RA training. What do you do if you see Facebook messages about how a couple was fighting? What do you do if a friend shows you stalkerish emails from an ex? What do you do if someone comes to you saying someone came to them about possibly being sexually assaulted?
The possible sexual assault thing was so vague, too. When the training asked me to give advice to the friend of this victim, my first response was CALL THE COPS -- because there were zero details given, and my first thought was that this happened like five minutes ago and there's an assailant out there who can and should be apprehended immediately before someone else gets hurt. Then when I was told there's a better answer, I went for the option of insisting on driving her to the hospital, because she might need immediate medical attention. No, chided the training, the real answer is that you should tell him to speak to her calmly and in a soothing voice! Because I guess this was a case where someone, well after the fact, considered what had happened and started to wonder if full consent had been given. Or maybe not? It never told me. All I got to do was tell an imaginary person to tell another imaginary person that he should provide her resources but never pressure her to report.
This was also the place that made me uncomfortable, because it never touched on the shitshow that reporting can be. And sure, I guess no school wants to put out a training saying 'and if you tell our administration, likely nothing will come of it and the individual will never be punished!', but it's too often true.
It also kept saying 'have resources on hand!' to give to this person, and then not providing any information about those resources. I realize this is not a school-specific program, but perhaps there could be something that can be tailored to a specific population? Maybe links to the counseling center or the number for the crisis hotline? Nope, you get to go find those on your own. But be sure you have them on hand, and that they're the right ones!
At the end it asked for feedback. One of the things I said was, look, as a 34-year-old bisexual who's been lesbian-married 6+ years, I'm not your target audience, and that's fine. But I do work with students every day, and one of the things I found seriously lacking was the What To Do When This Happens part of things. While it was absolutely clear that you should never push someone to report sexual assault (good!), it also didn't provide much suggestion in the way of reporting other than 'tell campus police and/or the real police'.
What do I do when the police don't believe my friend's friend? Or when they start asking her lots of horrible, invasive questions? What should my imaginary friend expect to encounter if he accompanies her as an advocate? What will he need to be ready to do? Who else is available to be an advocate? What kind of horrifying blowback can she expect to get?
See, I think that's the kind of training that would have made a difference: How to fucking believe someone who says they've been raped. How not to create a hostile environment that silences anyone who alleges sexual assault. How to realize that even though that guy she's accusing seems like a charming, stand-up dude, he might very well not be. How to reconcile what you're hearing with the knowledge that well under 10% of rape allegations are false. How to recognize the dehumanizing potential of rape culture.
The one little bit it had about consent had a piece where you were supposed to contradict a guy who said a girl in a tight outfit is 'asking for it'. That was about all it got in the way of representation of toxic attitudes -- and with phrasing so trite that we've all been trained about the correct answer there.
I mean, I think 99.99% of us are pretty clear that you shouldn't sexually assault people. And yet, sexual assault keeps happening! So either we've got a posse of really persistent rapists out there, or we need to acknowledge the fact that what's fuzzy here is the definition of sexual assault. When you've got plenty of men out there who will say yes to the idea that sometimes women should be obligated to have sex with them, we're way beyond tut-tutting the idea that that slut in a dress really wants to be penetrated regardless of what she says about it.
I'm so mad that it never comes back to 'maybe' in the friend-of-a-friend who was maybe sexually assaulted. Why isn't she sure if she was sexually assaulted? Who knows? Why doesn't she want to report? No clue. What might she be thinking and feeling? Well, considering that the only things we know about her are filtered through her male friend, it's anyone's guess. What's important is that you know how to make him feel empowered.
There was lesbian and gay representation in there (no other letters on the rainbow, though). The stalker scenario was a lesbian situation, though, and that sat weirdly with me. Not that women can't be stalkers? In fact, they often are! But stalking so often involves a type of entitlement that's very male.
And it was all about what to do if you have a stalker! It wasn't about how not to be a stalker! Everything was focused on being on the receiving end of threats and sexual violence, and none of it was about how to conduct yourself properly when a relationship is over. Which ... I don't know, is that better because it's statistically more likely? After all, a tiny fraction of men commit a huge percentage of sexual assaults, so is the message correct to be geared in its current direction, where it assumes (correctly) it has a higher probability of addressing someone affected by violence rather than a perpetrator? Or is that letting the perpetrators off the hook?
...I think, at the end of the day, part of why this sticks so badly in my craw is that I don't know why that training existed. Here's what I got from it -- and I'm paraphrasing here, but I'm not being flippant: Communicate with your partner and be receptive to your partner's communicating to you. Here are some students talking about why communication is important. Here are some examples of relationships that are good, relationships that have problems, and relationships that are abusive. Here are some examples of messages that count as stalking, and if you get them, you should tell the authorities. It's a good thing if a victim of sexual assault reports that assault, but you should never pressure to report and instead provide information about reporting and counseling resources.
All of which can be very good things to know! But I have zero idea why $University made us all go through this.
Unless, of course, they're covering their asses -- and I think that's why I'm so upset, because that's the sense I get. This training deals overwhelmingly with what to do once the damage has been done. It doesn't talk about how to stop that damage in the first place. It's damage control. It is the bare minimum effort, imposed on a population large enough that the effort looks impressive.
There is one point where it comes so close to being proactive, and that's with how it's got a big section on communication before it goes into stalking and sexual assault. But it never (and if it did, I missed it) made the connection between healthy communication and stopping sexual assault. It could have been so great to have a section on, here's how to recognize if a partner is not respecting your boundaries! There are cases of obvious evil, like 'Bob doesn't let Sue go out with her friends' or 'Bob insists on having Sue's Facebook password', but no 'Whenever Sue says no to something, Bob wears her down her until she eventually says yes' or 'Bob blames Sue for his outbursts and tearfully apologizes later' or 'Bob says he'll kill himself if Sue leaves him'.
I mean, as long as we're focusing on the affected and not perpetrators, why not go that route? Help me learn what I should do when Sue tells me Bob promises things will be different if she just gives him one more chance. Teach me what I should tell Bob when he tells me Sue thinks she needs a little more space. Teach me what I should do when I am Bob and Sue tells me she needs a little more space.
It just feels like something that'll look good on paper, accomplish nothing, and exonerate the people in charge because they can now say they tried. That's the worst kind of bullshit there is.
I hope you have had a successful start to the academic year. In an effort to continue to provide you with important education regarding the issue of sexual misconduct, all second-, third-, and fourth-year $University students, as well as our graduate and professional students, on all $University campuses are required to complete an annual online education program. The deadline to complete the training module is Dec. 1, 2015. If you do not finish the program, a hold will be placed on your account.
The name of this online program is Think About It: The Way Forward. This training module is self-paced, so you can start and stop the course as often as you would like. When you return, the course will open to the last page visited. Completion times will vary, although you should expect to spend at least 30 minutes engaging with this material. Think About It covers topics including healthy relationships, partying smart, and sexual violence.
It is important to provide this type of education to you at different points throughout your college career. As you grow and develop through college, you face new opportunities and challenges all of the time. As your experiences broaden, it is beneficial to receive continuing education as you navigate different risks and strive to make healthy decisions. This training module is an outcome of a key recommendation of $University's Presidential Committee on Campus Sexual Misconduct, which studied the university's programs and policies related to this issue.
If at any point, the material contained within the program produces discomfort, please visit $University's Sexual Misconduct Resources website for support and resources.
I had thoughts! They go here:
(Disclaimer: I'm describing this from memory, because I'm not going back through that thing.)
First thing: This training could not have been more obviously geared to the traditional 18-to-22-year-old college set. I would be surprised if half the people mandated to take the training fell in that category. When I taught there, anywhere from 25% to 75% of my students in any given class were of non-traditional age, and a whopping all of my Ph.D classmates were. So hooray, you've just made maybe half of your student population slog through something that has no relevance to where they are in their lives. Spot-on!
The entire thing had a weird bent to it of 'what do you do if you're a friend to someone who's having these problems?' Which is good, I suppose, since a lot of people don't know how to respond. But it also made it feel so very removed, almost like RA training. What do you do if you see Facebook messages about how a couple was fighting? What do you do if a friend shows you stalkerish emails from an ex? What do you do if someone comes to you saying someone came to them about possibly being sexually assaulted?
The possible sexual assault thing was so vague, too. When the training asked me to give advice to the friend of this victim, my first response was CALL THE COPS -- because there were zero details given, and my first thought was that this happened like five minutes ago and there's an assailant out there who can and should be apprehended immediately before someone else gets hurt. Then when I was told there's a better answer, I went for the option of insisting on driving her to the hospital, because she might need immediate medical attention. No, chided the training, the real answer is that you should tell him to speak to her calmly and in a soothing voice! Because I guess this was a case where someone, well after the fact, considered what had happened and started to wonder if full consent had been given. Or maybe not? It never told me. All I got to do was tell an imaginary person to tell another imaginary person that he should provide her resources but never pressure her to report.
This was also the place that made me uncomfortable, because it never touched on the shitshow that reporting can be. And sure, I guess no school wants to put out a training saying 'and if you tell our administration, likely nothing will come of it and the individual will never be punished!', but it's too often true.
It also kept saying 'have resources on hand!' to give to this person, and then not providing any information about those resources. I realize this is not a school-specific program, but perhaps there could be something that can be tailored to a specific population? Maybe links to the counseling center or the number for the crisis hotline? Nope, you get to go find those on your own. But be sure you have them on hand, and that they're the right ones!
At the end it asked for feedback. One of the things I said was, look, as a 34-year-old bisexual who's been lesbian-married 6+ years, I'm not your target audience, and that's fine. But I do work with students every day, and one of the things I found seriously lacking was the What To Do When This Happens part of things. While it was absolutely clear that you should never push someone to report sexual assault (good!), it also didn't provide much suggestion in the way of reporting other than 'tell campus police and/or the real police'.
What do I do when the police don't believe my friend's friend? Or when they start asking her lots of horrible, invasive questions? What should my imaginary friend expect to encounter if he accompanies her as an advocate? What will he need to be ready to do? Who else is available to be an advocate? What kind of horrifying blowback can she expect to get?
See, I think that's the kind of training that would have made a difference: How to fucking believe someone who says they've been raped. How not to create a hostile environment that silences anyone who alleges sexual assault. How to realize that even though that guy she's accusing seems like a charming, stand-up dude, he might very well not be. How to reconcile what you're hearing with the knowledge that well under 10% of rape allegations are false. How to recognize the dehumanizing potential of rape culture.
The one little bit it had about consent had a piece where you were supposed to contradict a guy who said a girl in a tight outfit is 'asking for it'. That was about all it got in the way of representation of toxic attitudes -- and with phrasing so trite that we've all been trained about the correct answer there.
I mean, I think 99.99% of us are pretty clear that you shouldn't sexually assault people. And yet, sexual assault keeps happening! So either we've got a posse of really persistent rapists out there, or we need to acknowledge the fact that what's fuzzy here is the definition of sexual assault. When you've got plenty of men out there who will say yes to the idea that sometimes women should be obligated to have sex with them, we're way beyond tut-tutting the idea that that slut in a dress really wants to be penetrated regardless of what she says about it.
I'm so mad that it never comes back to 'maybe' in the friend-of-a-friend who was maybe sexually assaulted. Why isn't she sure if she was sexually assaulted? Who knows? Why doesn't she want to report? No clue. What might she be thinking and feeling? Well, considering that the only things we know about her are filtered through her male friend, it's anyone's guess. What's important is that you know how to make him feel empowered.
There was lesbian and gay representation in there (no other letters on the rainbow, though). The stalker scenario was a lesbian situation, though, and that sat weirdly with me. Not that women can't be stalkers? In fact, they often are! But stalking so often involves a type of entitlement that's very male.
And it was all about what to do if you have a stalker! It wasn't about how not to be a stalker! Everything was focused on being on the receiving end of threats and sexual violence, and none of it was about how to conduct yourself properly when a relationship is over. Which ... I don't know, is that better because it's statistically more likely? After all, a tiny fraction of men commit a huge percentage of sexual assaults, so is the message correct to be geared in its current direction, where it assumes (correctly) it has a higher probability of addressing someone affected by violence rather than a perpetrator? Or is that letting the perpetrators off the hook?
...I think, at the end of the day, part of why this sticks so badly in my craw is that I don't know why that training existed. Here's what I got from it -- and I'm paraphrasing here, but I'm not being flippant: Communicate with your partner and be receptive to your partner's communicating to you. Here are some students talking about why communication is important. Here are some examples of relationships that are good, relationships that have problems, and relationships that are abusive. Here are some examples of messages that count as stalking, and if you get them, you should tell the authorities. It's a good thing if a victim of sexual assault reports that assault, but you should never pressure to report and instead provide information about reporting and counseling resources.
All of which can be very good things to know! But I have zero idea why $University made us all go through this.
Unless, of course, they're covering their asses -- and I think that's why I'm so upset, because that's the sense I get. This training deals overwhelmingly with what to do once the damage has been done. It doesn't talk about how to stop that damage in the first place. It's damage control. It is the bare minimum effort, imposed on a population large enough that the effort looks impressive.
There is one point where it comes so close to being proactive, and that's with how it's got a big section on communication before it goes into stalking and sexual assault. But it never (and if it did, I missed it) made the connection between healthy communication and stopping sexual assault. It could have been so great to have a section on, here's how to recognize if a partner is not respecting your boundaries! There are cases of obvious evil, like 'Bob doesn't let Sue go out with her friends' or 'Bob insists on having Sue's Facebook password', but no 'Whenever Sue says no to something, Bob wears her down her until she eventually says yes' or 'Bob blames Sue for his outbursts and tearfully apologizes later' or 'Bob says he'll kill himself if Sue leaves him'.
I mean, as long as we're focusing on the affected and not perpetrators, why not go that route? Help me learn what I should do when Sue tells me Bob promises things will be different if she just gives him one more chance. Teach me what I should tell Bob when he tells me Sue thinks she needs a little more space. Teach me what I should do when I am Bob and Sue tells me she needs a little more space.
It just feels like something that'll look good on paper, accomplish nothing, and exonerate the people in charge because they can now say they tried. That's the worst kind of bullshit there is.