Faith Faulkner Professor Jeffrey W. Murry UNIV 111 30th November 2017

Sexual Violence towards Women of Color

With sexual assault and sexual violence growing in awareness it is our responsibility to listen and solve the issue to prevent it from continuing. One of the main causes is the divide in gender and male superiority and dominance implicated into our society. Although the majority of sexual assault and violence victims and survivors are women, especially women of color, men and gender non-conforming people can be victims and survivors. Having schools be required to teach comprehensive sex education and implementing the acknowledgement of the notions of gender and consent at an early age will result in healthier decision making and greatly decrease the amount of sexual assaults and violent actions.

Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempt to obtain a sexual act by using violence or coercion. It is the act of trafficking a person, acts directed against a person’s sexuality, sexual harassment in and out of the workplace, domestic violence, marital and other forms of rape, and often times stalking, regardless of the relationship between the victim and the pursuer. Most reported sexual assaults are against females, with 1 in 3 to 1 in 4 women experiencing sexual assault in their lifetime (Women’s Voices Feminist Visions, page 550).

With the rate of sexual violence towards women already being high, when you look further into the data, women of color have higher rates. This is because the marginalization of women of color lead to them being more vulnerable to these acts. Women of color also tend to have less credibility in the courtroom when rape cases go to trial and are more subjected to hardships due to historical racism.

Women of color have been portrayed as promiscuous or hypersexual leading to the

“Jezebel” stereotypes promoting the idea that women of color cannot be raped because they are always willing to participate in all sexual activity. The use of sexism and racism as tools of oppression with these stereotypes make women of color more susceptible to sexual violence. It is also difficult for a lot of women of color to access proper support services or receive fair treatment do to cost, ability, knowledge, and misrepresentation. It is believed that for every African-American woman who reports her rape, at least fifteen African-

American women do not report theirs (Connecticut Alliance Website). Through a survey done by the Connecticut Alliance website they found that the percent of women raped in a lifetime for Caucasian woman to be 17.9%, 11.9% Latina Women, 18.8% African

American women, 34.1” American Indian/Alaskan Native women, 24.4% Mixed Race women, and 6.8% Asian/Pacific Islander women. With this data it seems to be more statewide for Connecticut rather than nationwide and doesn’t mention how they found this information and what they based it off of.

Moving closer to home, there were 15 reported rapes in 2016, 8 in 2015, and 5 in

2014. Within the past three years almost of all of these assaults occurred in the dorms of

VCU (“Reported rapes nearly doubled at VCU due to awareness, police say.”

Commonwealth Times, The: Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA), 9 Oct.

017, print-edition. NewsBank.). Although it is unclear of race, but with the rates shown it shouldn’t matter. The article also mentioned that, “according to the U.S. Department of

Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, sexual violence declined across the nation between 1997 and 2013 - the rate of rape or sexual assault dropped by about 50 percent.” The police believed that the new awareness of sexual assault and violence is the reason why it seems like a jump in the number of assaults. They follow up with that students are more comfortable and trust that they will get the services they need in order to get justice.

Although the amount of known assaults are getting higher it is unclear to how high the amount of unknown assaults there are, but it is pretty clear that, that number is probably a lot higher.

Another site I looked at was a database and a resource for Sexual Violence Services in Virginia. VA data’s report for Sexual Violence Services 2016 data from 1/1/2016 -

12/31/ Included hotline contacts where more than one issue could’ve been brought up. Over this period of time they had 10,499 calls about sexual violence, 30% of which were against children. By the end of the year they had a total of 62,148 hotline calls that included domestic violence and other services. With this, the data didn’t go further into race and/or ethnicity, but again with most hotlines being confidential, it would seem rude to ask for someone’s racial background when they are trying to get help. One thing that made me curious about the data was there lack of further categories into what types of issues were discussed and exactly how many people talked about more than one issue or called more than once. With all of the resources Virginia has for sexual violence victims, I feel that a lot people don’t know where to go and are unaware of these resources. To further explain, the government can give us all of these resources but letting people know about them is another story.

With my research I found it harder to find statistics surrounding just women of color, but that further supports want I mentioned above. Since Some women of color have very strong connections to their families, cultures, and racial/ethnic groups, they may not want to “betray” those they care about by discussing and coming out about the abuse that occurs within those communities. Also, a lot of times some women of color don’t realize what is considered abuse and sexual violence, leading to the continuation of it and it continually going unnoticed. The rate of sexual violence towards women of color is higher due to historical stereotypes, like “Jezebel,” mainly for African American women and

“Lotus Blossom,” or “Dragon Lady,” for Asian women, against them that make them vulnerable and susceptible to violence. This violence has been around since slavery (and before) in the united states where African American women were used as sexual objects for white men because they were seen as property rather than human beings (Women’s

Voices Feminists Visions, page 504-506). These ideas with the notion of gender norms are what keeps sexual violence at a high rate at a societal level and trickle down to affect those in smaller communities like Richmond, Va.

A major problem that has been growing in our society is the rate of sexual violence and assault to not only women, but women of color. When addressing the issue of violence against women in the United States as a whole and locally we need to understand several key points. First, Violence against women must be understood in the context of socially constructed notions of gender that are taught at an early age through family. Second,

Violence is an issue of power and must be seen as being related to masculine dominance in society especially masculine entitlement. Finally, we must understand violence against women in terms of the normalization of violence in society through the sexualization of violence in the media and the overall acceptance. It is sad to say that we live in a society where violence is used to solve problems every day, the media is saturated with violence, militarism is a national policy, and rape is used as a weapon of war (Women’s Voices

Feminist Visions, pages 542-548). Changing the idea and notions of gender and implementing that into better sex education classes for younger individuals and through high school will be a huge step forward in reducing the amount of sexual assaults and overall violence to women and women of color.

As of March 1, 2016: 24 states and the District of Columbia required public schools to teach sex education (21 of which mandated sex education and HIV education); 33 states and the District of Columbia required students receive instruction about HIV/AIDS; and

20 states required that if provided, sex and/or HIV education must be medically, factually or technically accurate. Although a state’s definition of “medically accurate” may vary, which the department of health review curriculum for accuracy further mandated that curriculums should be based on information from “published authorities upon which medical professionals rely” (“State Policies on Sex Education in Schools.” www.ncsl.org,

National Conference of State Legislatures, 21 Dec. 2016, www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-policies-on-sex-education-in-schools.aspx.).

Since 1997 the federal government has invested more than $1.5 billion dollars in abstinence-only programs that have been proven to be ineffective programs which censor or exclude important information that could help young people protect their health

(“Comprehensive Sex Education: Research and Results.” Advocatesforyouth.org,

Advocates for Youth, www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/1487.). According to the

Advocates for Youth website it is comprehensive sex education programs that actually helps youth remain healthy and avoid negative sexual health outcomes. Comprehensive sex education includes age-appropriate, medically accurate information on a broad set of topics related to sexuality including human development, relationships, decision making, abstinence, contraception, and disease prevention. These programs address the root issues that help teens make responsible decisions to keep them safe and healthy (“Support

SIECUS!” SIECUS – Fact Sheet, Sexuality Information and Education Council of the

United States, www.siecus.org/inex.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=1193).

Having the federal government invest in a proven effective program will inevitably lower the rate of sexual violence and assault to not only women and women of color, but everyone. This will involve re-evaluating the current programs in public schools and creating new ones if they are not present. The restrictions and guidelines for what is taught will be stricter and made sure that they are inclusive to all relationships and give as much accurate information as possible. The plan would be to use the money for Abstinence-only programs to change them to Comprehensive programs. This will most likely end up costing around a billion dollars (less than the 1.5 billion spent) nationwide because we would have to make new foundations, improve the current foundations that provide sex education programs, and train teachers.

With this, "Studies show that individuals and communities adhering to restrictive and harmful social norms are more likely to perpetrate physical, sexual, and emotional violence against women," a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published this year says. Implementing awareness of gender norms and their effects on society will further the decrease of sexual assault and violence. If parents and communities can change children's ideas about gender at a young age, they may be able to prevent them from becoming abusive later in life. Programs like Men Can Stop Rape, which is based in DC, says that instead of the lessons being about sexual assault or violence, they teach young children “social and emotional skills” through play (Swalec, Andre. “How Talking With

Children Can Help Stop Domestic Violence.” NBC4 Washington, NBC4 Washington, 3

Nov. 2016, www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Can-Teaching-Kids-About-Gender-

Roles-Prevent-Domestic-Violence-399860941.html.). If we can make more programs like

“Men Can Stop Rape,” and better sex education programs that challenge the rigid ideas about masculinity and femininity, we might be in a better position to prevent sexual violence and assault.

Although all states have some involvement in the sex education program, it is reported that the quality of sex education throughout is inconsistent, where each school district is permitted to adopt and censor aspects of the sex-education curriculum as they see fit. Meaning that students in certain areas will receive a much worse sex education than others (“Comprehensive Sex Education.” NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, NARAL, www.naralva.org/what-is-choice/comprehensive-sex-education/.). This is often called abstinence which teaches students to not have sex outside of marriage and often times excludes other types of sexual and reproductive health education, such as birth control and safe sex. With this, there is also a lack of teaching and discussing consent which is a key cause to sexual violence and assault in the United States. With research done by multiple scholars it is proven that Comprehensive Sex Education programs are the key to lowering health risks and decreasing the amount of sexual assault and overall sexual violence in the

United states.

Studies of the National Survey of Family Growth to determine the impact of sexuality education on youth sexual risk-taking for young people ages 15-19, found that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 50 percent less likely to experience pregnancy than those who received abstinence-only education. With comprehensive sex education 40 percent delayed sexual initiation, reduced the number of sexual partners, or increased condom or contraceptive use; 30 percent reduced the frequency of sex, including a return to abstinence; and 60 percent reduced unprotected sex. This shows that the information learned through these programs are more beneficial to teens and result in healthier decisions that lower the risk of HIV and other STI’s.

Through the U.S. National Library of Medicine, I found the range of costs and coverage of sexuality education programs, where costs per student for 6 different countries reached; US$7 in Nigeria, US$13.50 in India, US$33 in Estonia and the Netherlands,

US$50 in Kenya, and US$160 in Indonesia (Kivela, Jari, et al. “Cost Analysis of School-

Based Sexuality Education Programs in Six Countries.” Cost Effectiveness and Resource

Allocation: C/E, Biomed Central, 2013, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3735402/.). With this data and what I can remember from when I was in elementary-high school, I estimate that the average cost per student in Virginia would be around $10. The Average amount of schools in Virginia, excluding colleges and preschool, is 1,776 resulting in there being an average of 4 million students after adding the average amount of students in each school and multiplying that by the number of schools in Virginia

(http://www.doe.virginia.gov/statistics_reports/enrollment/local_regional_schools_center s/2017_18_local_reg_sch_ctrs_a.pdf). With the amount of schools and the average cost per student, this results to around 40 million dollars that will be paid by the families to help fund the training and resources needed for comprehensive sex education programs. It is also important that there is mandatory student enrolment in these programs. The overall result of having Comprehensive Sex Education Programs will lower the rate of people diagnosed with HIV and other STI’s, along with a decrease in unintended pregnancies, and overall acknowledgement and respect to other individuals. With these programs parents will also have to raise their children outside of the binary of gender so that the stereotypes that shape our lives will have less control on us and we’ll become less of a dominance driven society. As we gradually start to get away from gender norms and implement factual and accurate information and resources in school we will arrive at a less violent and safer society for everybody to live in.

Bibliography: “Comprehensive Sex Education.” NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, NARAL, www.naralva.org/what-is-choice/comprehensive-sex-education/. “Comprehensive Sex Education: Research and Results.” Advocatesforyouth.org, Advocates for Youth, www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/1487. http://www.doe.virginia.gov/statistics_reports/enrollment/local_regional_schools_centers /2017_18_local_reg_sch_ctrs_a.pdf Kivela, Jari, et al. “Cost Analysis of School-Based Sexuality Education Programs in Six Countries.” Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation: C/E, Biomed Central, 2013, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3735402/.

“Reported rapes nearly doubled at VCU due to awareness, police say.” Commonwealth Times, The: Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA), 9 Oct. 017, print-edition. NewsBank.

“State Policies on Sex Education in Schools.” www.ncsl.org, National Conference of State Legislatures, 21 Dec. 2016, www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-policies-on-sex- education-in-schools.aspx. “Support SIECUS!” SIECUS – Fact Sheet, Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, www.siecus.org/inex.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=1193

Swalec, Andre. “How Talking With Children Can Help Stop Domestic Violence.” NBC4 Washington, NBC4 Washington, 3 Nov. 2016, www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Can- Teaching-Kids-About-Gender-Roles-Prevent-Domestic-Violence-399860941.html.

“Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Published VA Data Reports,” Https://Vadata.org/public_reports.Html, Vadata, vadata.org/public_reports.html. Women’s Voices Feminist Visions, pages 542-548 “Women’s Voices Feminist Visions, Classic and Contemporary Readings,” Oregon State University. 2015 Issue. Susan M. Shaw and Janet Lee.