Goodbye Old Paint

We started a petition on Change.org calling on the National Federation of High Schools (NFHS) to provide resources to high school coaches to help them teach student athletes to prevent sexual assault.

And today, we have amazing news to share: after more than 65,000 people — including you! — signed our petition, the NFHS announced it will work with SPARK and our partners including Futures Without Violence and the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence to make sure coaches in 18,500 schools with more than 11 million students have access to the resources they need to teach student athletes to prevent sexual assault.

This is an exciting moment, not only because these important resources will now be available to so many coaches in so many schools, but because we are finally starting to change the conversation about sexual assault and how to prevent it. For too long, we’ve asked young women to protect themselves, but the truth is we must start educating young men about the meaning of sexual assault and how to prevent it.

What kind of world do we live in when young men are so proud of violating unconscious girls that they pass proof around to their friends? It’s the same kind of world in which being labeled a slut comes with such torturous social repercussions that suicide is preferable to enduring them. As a woman named Sara Erdmann so aptly tweeted to me, “I will never understand why it is more shameful to be raped than to be a rapist.”

And yet it is: so much so that young men seem to think there’s nothing wrong with—and maybe something hilarious about—sharing pictures of themselves raping young women. And why not? Their friends will defend them, as they did in Steubenville, tweeting that the young woman was “asking for it” and that the boys were being unfairly targeted.

Women and girls are the ones expected to carry the shame of the sexual crimes perpetrated against them. And that shame is a tremendous load to bear, because once you’re labeled a slut, empathy and compassion go out the window. The word is more than a slur—it’s a designation.

Missouri Republicans are once again attacking women’s health. The GOP controlled state Senate passed a bill on Thursday that would give pharmacies the option to refuse to stock drugs such as contraception. Pharmacies could also refuse to keep emergency contraception in stock.

The Senate approved SB 126 by a vote of 24-9 and it now heads to the Missouri House where Republicans are also in control.

If the bill were to become law, pharmacies across the state would be able to keep all forms of contraception off the shelves; meaning, even if a woman has a prescription from her doctor, a pharmacy could make the final decision regarding her health. For women who live in rural areas where pharmacies are few and far between, this legislation would force them to travel unnecessary distances to find a pharmacy willing to fill their prescriptions. Rape victims would be especially hit hard because pharmacies would be able to deny them emergency contraception.

Young girls acting like whores there’s no punishment for that,” one student posted the day after Mr. Gonzalez’s arrest on Feb. 20, continuing, “young men acting like boys is a sentence.”

Many adults in the community have been aghast at the posts, particularly those attacking the girls. They also have expressed frustration that many teenagers do not understand the statutory rape law, which is predicated on the notion that juveniles are not mature enough to consent to sex with an older partner. The furor prompted Kenneth Traub, the Board of Education chairman, to convene a community forum on sexual assault, with members of the Police Department and sexual assault counselors.

The fact is that rape culture—conversation, jokes and actions that normalize rape—are a part of sports. Far too many athletes feel far too empowered to see women as the spoils of jock culture. The young woman in Steubenville was carried like a piece of meat with the brutality documented like it was Spring Break in Daytona Beach. It was so normalized that dozens of people saw what was happening and did nothing.

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I don’t believe that rape culture is an endemic part of men’s sports. I do believe that rape culture is an endemic part of teenage boys being treated like gods by adults for their ability to play games. I also believe that rape culture in locker rooms can be destroyed with the active intervention of coaches who take violence against women seriously.

31 states allow rapists to sue for rights to the children their assault creates, and an estimated 32,000 women will become pregnant as a result of rape each year.

Do not allow their attackers to victimize them further. These rapists do not deserve custody or visitation rights. We must show women of America that we will no longer allow them to be victimized by their attackers over and over again.

We must take rape seriously.

As a woman journalist who has travelled almost every road in this city, one difference in public attitude that I can already feel everywhere is the way people have got used to words like “rape” and “sex” in their daily conversations.

The demand for change has become much louder.

Discussions that were once limited to television debates, feminist groups and a small bunch of socially aware citizens are now clearly hot topics on the streets.

Almost every day now I hear rickshaw pullers, auto-taxi drivers, roadside vendors and small shop owners talking about sex and rape and other previously taboo issues that used only to be discussed in the confines of their homes or among trusted friends.

If there is a silver lining in the dark cloud caused by last month’s gang rape it is that this issue is also being debated with much more candour and openness.