Sexual Assaul Series Part 3: Outreach

1. Outreach takes time and consistency

Many campus officials agree the biggest challenges UM faces in preventing sexual assaults is the transient nature of the student body and the crime's link to the perceptions of a wider world.

To be successful, Vice President Teresa Branch says it'll take "consistency and commitment."

"Nothing will change unless we're more committed to watching out for each other," Branch said.

SARC Director Eilis O'Herlihy agrees.

"You have to create dialog and work hard to get it in the public eye all the time, not just when something happens," O'Herlihy said.

2. Most rapists aren't strangers

In 1991, UM conducted its first and most comprehensive study of students who were sexually assaulted.

Nearly half of the victims were attacked at a private residence and 20 percent in dorm rooms.

Only 2 percent were attacked on streets, sidewalks or parking lots.

UM sociology professor Dan Doyle, who led the study with fellow professor James Burfeind, said their findings were both expected and surprising.

"Criminologists knew that most victims know their attacker, but I don't think the general public knew," Doyle said. "It wasn't like they'd assumed. It wasn't the ‘stranger jumping from a bush.'"

That hasn't changed, said the Director of UM's Student Assault Resource Center Eilis O'Herlihy.

"Most rapes happen in a place where you feel safe," she said. "It's counterproductive to put all the focus on arming women and teaching them to be safe so it doesn't happen rather than working on a larger scale to empower bystanders to intervene and prevent attacks."

With the exception of domestic violence, most victims are acquaintances, Doyle said, but not good friends with their attackers. And most assaults happen in a "safe place" like a friend's house or in a social setting like a house party.

David Lisack, a clinical psychologist and researcher from the University of Massachusetts, said the stereotype of the "stranger rapist" persists. In a pivotal 2002 study of "undetected rapists" —­ those who never faced charges for their crimes — he wrote:

"These stereotypes and misconceptions stem from decades of social science research and media coverage that have focused on the tiny handful of rapists whose crimes are reported by victims and who are then subsequently successfully prosecuted. These incarcerated rapists have been extensively studied. Many of them committed acts of grievous violence, inflicting gratuitous injuries on victims. In many cases, their victims were total strangers, and often these cases received considerable media coverage. As a result, there is a widespread belief that rapists typically attack strangers, use weapons, and inflict extensive physical injuries. Thus, when a rape case arises in which the rapist does not appear to fit this stereotype, many people find it hard to view the assault as a ‘real rape.'"

3. Rape is not about sex

Dressing sexy doesn't cause rapes to happen, said SARC Director Eilis O'Herlihy.

"It's about power and control," she said, pointing to the research of psychologist David Lisack.

In a 2002 analysis of rapists who haven't been charged for their crimes, Lisack wrote:

"Sexually aggressive behavior is typically part of a belief system that views women as sexual objects to be conquered, coerced and used for self-gratification. Undetected rapists are much more likely to hold stereotyped beliefs about the ‘proper' roles for women and men in society, and to rigidly adhere to those beliefs. They adhere to ‘rape myths' that both justify their aggressive acts and foster them. … For example, because they tell themselves that ‘women say no to sex even when they really want it,' they can disregard their victims' obvious signs of terror and resistance."

Empowered by these misconceptions, most unprosecuted assailants attack more than one person. In his study, he found that more than 60 percent of unreported rapists had, on average, attacked 14 victims each.

4. Gender shapes who victims talk to about an attack

The University has scheduled the national organization Men Can Stop Rape to visit campus in March. The goal of the Men of Strength Club is to "mobilize men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men's violence against women."

Modern prevention and outreach — such as Men Can Stop Rape — emphasizes the bystander model of intervention, said SARC Director Eilis O'Herlihy.

"There was a high profile incident about 20 years ago where a woman was raped and murdered on the street and many, many bystanders didn't intervene," she said. This prevention model focuses on educating people how and when to intervene so attacks don't happen.

"It's not just about teaching women not to get raped," O'Herlihy said. Modern outreach also strives to not alienate male victims.

Because most victims are women, she said it's even hard even for people who work in her field to stay "in the gender-neutral language boundaries created to be welcoming." Men face additional stigmas as a survivor, she said.

"Like people won't believe them or take them seriously," O'Herlihy said. "But we do have men come here and that's why we have male advocates."

Regardless of the victim's gender, she said men are a largely untapped resource to prevent assaults.

O'Herlihy said that because most women feel more comfortable talking to other women friends about their attacks, if at all, men sometimes feel the issue is distant and impersonal.

"A lot of men feel like it's not their place or makes them uncomfortable," O'Herlihy said. "Once you do engage men in this work, the conversations can be really powerful."

It's the reason Men Can Stop Rape was founded and their message is "tougher," O'Herlihy said. They strive to break down the cultural barriers that stop men from intervening when a friend or acquaintance chooses to attack a woman.

jayme.fraser@umontana.edu