“What do you do to avoid being attacked, raped, or otherwise violated?”

Posted byDr. Andrew Joseph PegodaPosted inWithout Ritual, Autonomous NegotiationsTags:, ,

We discussed voice, marginalization, and privilege this past week in my First Year Seminar classes. Students did an incredible job, especially considering the difficult nature of these topics, especially various privilege systems: White, male, Christian, able-bodied, cis-gendered, etc. The conversation in each class took completely different directions, which I love!

For this blog, I wanted to share the opening activity – the idea for which I got from a meme about two weeks ago.

After giving a disclaimer and explaining the topics would be difficult and personal, I asked:

Okay, men in the classroom: What do you do on a day-to-day basis to avoid being attacked, mugged, beat up, raped, or otherwise violated personally?

Then:

Okay, women in the classroom: What do you do on a day-to-day basis to avoid being attacked, mugged, beat up, raped, or otherwise violated personally?

The results from three of the four classes are:

IMG_1348 IMG_1334 IMG_1347

And the resulting discussions were most powerful.

What most men don’t see and don’t think about about, most women see and think about all the time. 

683,000 forcible rapes occur every year, which equals 56,916 per month, 1,870 per day, 78 per hour, and 1.3 per minute.
683,000 forcible rapes occur every year, which equals 56,916 per month, 1,870 per day, 78 per hour, and 1.3 per minute.