UW-Madison’s student government hopes to emphasize “it’s on us” to prevent sexual assault through a slate of events that aim to inform the campus community about rape culture.
Mariam Coker, Associated Students of Madison vice chair, had the idea to create programming that focused on the underlying causes of sexual assault after listening to a speech by Keith E. Edwards at UW-River Falls in February.
“He hit the nail on the head, he talked about toxic masculinity and how the society that we live in makes it acceptable to have these behaviors,” Coker said. “That's what I'm hoping to address this week, that we need to get to the root of the issue. The root of the issue is toxic masculinity, that we live in a culture of rape.”
ASM is hosting It’s On Us Week of Action, which includes events Monday through Saturday and features groups like the UW-Madison Army Reserve Officer Training Corps, First Wave and Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment.
Monday and Wednesday’s events involve screenings of two sexual assault documentaries, followed by discussions facilitated by Army ROTC and PAVE.
One of the feature events is Thursday’s “Dear Masculinity” Letter Writing Workshop, which is exclusively for people who identify as men. The goal of having participants address letters to their masculinity is to show men how multifaceted it is.
By reaching out to men, Coker and ASM hope to reach a group of students who generally do not receive as many messages about preventing sexual assault.
“With a lot of recent research about how sexual assault happens on college campuses, it was found that more often than not sexual assault happens because consent isn't given,” Coker said. “People don't understand what consent is. I think talking about masculinity could definitely work to alleviate that issue.”
The week’s programming will finish up with a Green Dot training designed to implement the bystander intervention strategy adopted by the university. The goal of this event is to again emphasize the role of the entire student body in combating sexual assault.
“The issue of sexual assault is not just the issue of two people: It's an issue of the entire community,” Coker said. “It's on all of us to end rape culture.”
