Giavanni Alves | Sexual healing? … I think not

Ja Feel | Discussing and addressing sexual violence at Penn parties

By Giavanni Alves 09/22/15 11:06pm

While it manifests itself in different ways across a variety of parties, sexual violence against young women occurs on a regular basis both on and off our campus.

To properly discuss this community issue beyond my own view, I sent a questionnaire to 26 Penn students ranging in race, ethnicity, age, school, gender and sex. I received responses from 15 people, 10 of whom were men and the remaining five, women.

Only four out of 10 random men interviewed on this topic agreed that sexual violence is an issue at Penn parties. Meanwhile every woman reported multiple instances in which they experienced unwanted touching and repeated forceful attempts at dancing from men at parties, despite their resistance and declines.

I have lost track of the number of experiences that have left me seething at parties, both multicultural and predominantly white. I have been groped from virtually every possible angle, dragged to the wall, pulled away from a female friend that I was dancing with and flung onto a guy, been at the receiving end of a “f**k that bitch” one too many times after ignoring men’s thirsty presence and repeatedly grabbed and attempted to be danced with by men that I resisted.

As one woman stated in her response, “Guys at parties think us women are their property. Their bitches. Their reward for paying $5 at the door.” The notion that men are entitled to women and can take advantage of us is part of a larger perpetuated societal culture that incessantly delivers mass messages in media that project women as sex objects for men to play with and manhandle to their heart’s content.

Parties become the perfect setting for sexual violence without consequences as tone of music, women’s outfits, dancing and alcohol are used as justification. And so the culture and violence continues to be perpetuated, even welcomed.

However, this year a rather public attempt was made to address the issue. About a month ago, a group of black male students on this campus took to Facebook, notifying the Penn community and the rest of their friends that they were pledging to “combat various forms of violence on campus,” specifically “sexual and verbal assault” as the post that was copied and pasted across my news feed read.

Unfortunately, these supposedly genuine intentions are undermined by lack of strategy and implementation, as well as the fact that many of these men have been the aggressors at parties. Furthermore, one of the men who took the pledge responded in the survey that I conducted, deflecting the issue to the white community in the same breath saying “It hasn’t particularly been a major issue that I’ve personally seen.” So please, tell me what it is that you are pledging to combat if you don’t acknowledge the issue?

While I clicked “like” on the post whenever I saw it and applaud the attempt, I cannot wholeheartedly believe in it. Moreover, this post has barely skimmed the surface of the issue, becoming more of a question than an answer. In fact, this pledge highlights the disconnect between men and women around the discussion as well the issue of addressing sexual violence at parties here at Penn.

The first step here is to actually acknowledge that it is one. Awareness is key. Once you start noticing the sexual violence that takes place at parties, you will not be able to stop. Yes it is a vibe killer, but think about all of the girls that have been victims of sexual violence and how they are reminded of it every time they step into parties or pass their violators on Locust.

That being said, women, while we do speak on the topic, we don’t do so enough. We have to speak up and make the men on this campus hear our stories. Coping quietly only makes us angrier and allows the violence to continue. As for the men: LISTEN! It is not your job to act on behalf of us, but to pay attention to the issues we bring up. As one guy said, “This is when men need to listen ... let women lead. Men support from the back, not dictate from the front.”

Initiative comes in the forms of having this open discussion, strategizing how to spread awareness and making these spaces intolerant of sexual violence. There are the immediate case-by-case approaches of stopping aggressors in the moment at parties, but there also need to be standards set by those running the parties. Furthermore, in drawing up all these solutions there must be follow through.

The fact of the matter is, sexual violence is very much an issue at the parties here at Penn. This baby elephant in the room is not going anywhere; in fact it is growing. Now let’s do something about it.

GIAVANNI ALVES is a College sophomore from New York.  Her email address is alvesg@sas.upenn.edu. “Ja Feel” appears every other Wednesday.

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