By Ben Riggleman

Student employees at SMCC had to go through workplace safety training in October, and I’m no exception. All it meant was watching a handful of slideshows and filling out some multiple-choice quizzes; you could do it while watching TV. I was tempted to blow it off by doing just that, until I opened up the first slideshow and was confronted with some jarring information: “About one out of every five women in their college years experiences attempted or completed sexual assault.” An equally scary number followed: according to one study, “One in 12 college men committed acts that met the legal definition of rape, and 84% of them did not consider their actions to be illegal.”

As I imagine is typical of college-aged men, I was ignorant of the scope of the problem. I had a hard time believing the latter figure, so I did some light research around the Web. I found that the one-out-of-12 statistic (from a 1998 study by Ouimette and Riggs) was substantiated by the literature and widely cited. It boggles my mind that there could be rapists among the young men I call friends and acquaintances, but I must now accept the likelihood. In the past, I’d thought “rape culture” sounded like hyperbole, and I’d questioned affirmative consent. It now seems like any intervention from colleges, no matter how awkward, is many times better than doing nothing.

Likewise, knowing the facts on sexual assault, rape, harassment and discrimination, it’s hard to argue that feminism isn’t necessary. “Political correctness,” if it is a problem, is inconsequential by comparison.

Violence against women has been in the news lately, with the Harvey Weinstein scandal being the most recent of many. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read Lexis Elston’s column on #MeToo, a social-media campaign for recognition by women who have been sexually assaulted (see Page 3.) Also, Lloyd Metcalf’s “What If” column on this page explores the implications of gender roles in our society and considers how we’d function in their total absence.