Are women really safe on US campuses?

No. Women are not safe on college campuses. And we never have been and never will be if there aren’t changes.

Women abide by the ridiculous unspoken rules that we’re told but there’s only so much we can do. 

We only go places in pairs, always carry pepper spray, cross the street to where there are lights or to avoid strangers who could hurt us, wear the most covering clothes in our closets every day, be nice to everyone but also not too nice so we don’t lead them on and always let them down easy. Don’t take drinks from people, always watch your drinks, always lock your doors, ignore it if someone marks your car- get in and drive away, step into your car far enough away so no one can grab you if they’re hiding beneath it, don’t go with someone you don’t know well, and give your friends your location or always tell them your plans. 

But even with following every single one of these things to our best ability and taking our safety upon ourselves it won’t and can’t guarantee our safety.

Compared to women of all ages women from ages 18-24 that go to college are three times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted and those in the same age range who aren’t in college are four times more likely. And to add to that college women are twice as likely to be sexually assaulted than robbed. Of the women who are assaulted, only 20% of them will report their assaults to law enforcement, with one of the most common reasons being they believed it wasn’t important enough to report, according to rainn.org. 

They don’t think that something that can be incredibly traumatic and changes their lives forever, whether they want it to or not, is important enough to report. 

If you can’t read the subtext on that here it is: they don’t think that they are important enough for someone to care about what happened to them or care to help them. And the worst part is that they’re almost right. You can literally watch it happen right now. 

At Texas A&M University’s College Station campus, women are posting and spreading knowledge about what they know to be happening while nothing has even made headlines. I encourage you to look this up, my article might still be one of the only things mentioning this. 

The police let out a statement on facebook but are telling people not to worry about it, so it won’t create panic. 

Fine, they don’t want people to panic but not increasing security on campus or doing anything to help besides giving vague information isn’t helping either. It’s putting the responsibility on women to keep themselves safe until -hopefully- you catch the serial rapist. 

Women on the campus have become aware of the serial rapist and are expected to just take care of themselves and try their best to stay safe. There are videos of women in College Station trying to find pepper spray in bare aisles and locking and boarding up windows and doors. 

They are taking every possible precaution, but it won’t stop anything until other people stand up to help.

The women who live in College Station, are taking every extra precaution so that they can be safe while everyone else blissfully ignores what could happen to them. 

We have to stop expecting women to be the only thing keeping themselves safe. Take care of the women in your life, and make them feel like their lives are worth protecting. Hold the men or women in your life accountable. Do something. Because women have protected themselves from people forever and obviously, we could use a little extra help.