Attitudes Toward Sexual Violence and Student Affairs Work

Please read The Huffington Post's recent article on the FBI changing their archaic definition of rape.

This article is so important to me because sexual violence prevention is so important to me, and I am so glad that there seems to be so much more media coverage of the language we use in society and how we are defining sexual violence.  However, I do think that I also have to consider the source.  I think The Huffington Post is pretty widely known for being a liberal news source, so the people who need the information the most may not be getting it.  Victim-blaming attitudes and a lack of understanding of the complexities of sexual violence are pretty wide-spread, however, so I still think it is incredibly useful.

Why is this important knowledge to have in student affairs?  Well, because student affairs professionals, I think, should have a broad base of knowledge of the challenges that students may face during their time in college.  As the article says, there is much recent research that shows that 20% of women will be sexually victimized in their lifetime.  Many of those young women (or men) may be college students we are working with.  How do we respond as student affairs professionals when a student confides in us?  While it is important to refer students to the appropriate resources on or off campus, I think that may sometimes seem to students that you--the person they confided in-- does not know how to support them in that situation by affirming their feelings or knowing what might be the wrong thing to say.  As a student affairs professional they trust, you may be the first person to which they divulge this very sensitive information, and saying the wrong thing (such as a victim-blaming comment/question) may make them unlikely to get the help they need from the resources you refer them to.  Of course, I think it is hard to know in every situation what will be exactly the right thing to say to that student, but it is important to have an idea.

In my final semester of graduate school (or after, but hopefully it doesn't take that long to find a job!), I am hoping to find a job that I can educate students on the impact of sexual violence on college campuses and how to prevent sexual violence through education and programming, which really calls for attitude change that will ultimately (hopefully) create a cultural shift in attitude.

I know that the jobs that would allow me to do this are not numerous, but I do think that even if I do not get a job doing work with sexual violence prevention and education right away, I still may work with students who need support after experiencing sexual violence.  There are many other topics that are also sensitive when working with students, and I will be constantly striving to educate myself on those topics so I can best serve the students I am working with both now and in my future student affairs career.