The Hunting Ground

The beginning of The Hunting Ground starts off with students finding out they get into the college of their dreams, and their excitement is uncontrollable. Little do they know their lives may change forever. Notre Dame’s president welcomes everyone to college and they seems so excited, as do most students when they start their college journey.

Several young women introduce how they were just like any other college student, involved, excited, and vulnerable. One student said her and her best friend were sexually assaulted before classes even started. They described the feeling that it makes people feel like no one see or recognizes them. Sexual assault on campus is enormous, and probably larger than you thought. More than 16% of women are sexually assaulted while at college. A young woman at UNC told a female administrator she was raped and the administrator said back to her, “rape is like a football game, If you look back at the game, what would you do differently?” This is extremely awful and unfortunate considering this was an administrator and a woman. She did not get any support or help after this and she was blamed. Young women at other schools also reported their rapes and administrators asked questions like “what did you wear? How much did you drink? Did you pregame?” As if that gives anyone a right to rape someone. Victims also got no responses back and some were even told to drop out and wait until everything blows over. Another victim went into an office to check if anything happened yet and the administrator replied with “oh, I forgot”. It is unreasonable and unfair for people to blame victims because it makes victims not even want to report because they think they will not receive the help they need.

One statistic stated says “88 percent of women sexually assaulted on campus do not report”. This is extremely unfortunate and also gives predators a greater chance to sexually assault someone because there is a high percentage they will not report. Also, a college professor stated that colleges will not report to the police because it will end up as a public record and make the school look bad. At the end of the day, all colleges really care about is making money and having a good reputation. The Hunting Ground also states that in 2012, 45% of colleges reported zero sexual assaults. This is extremely unlikely and the only reason colleges are doing this is to make sure their name stays in a positive light. Many people will say that prestigious colleges like Harvard will never have issues like this, but that is completely untrue. Harvard had 135 reported sexual assaults from 2009-2013. Rape can happen anywhere, and it’s even more likely for a predator to be someone you know or even trust. A student at Harvard reported a rape and the dean of students replied with “don’t talk to anyone about this, it could be a problem with people rallying around campus”. At a hearing for this, professors went and asked, “was it misunderstood? Did he think it was more than just a friendship?”. None of that matters. What people do not understand is that if both people do not agree to engaging in sexual activities then it is considered sexual assault. If one says stop while engaging in sexual activities after agreeing to it and the partner does not stop, that is sexual assault. Page 61 of Feminist Film Studies by Janet McCabe states “Another burgeoning field of study involving cultural theories and film feminism relates to romantic comedy, gender representation and visual pleasures.” TV shows and movies display unrealistic and unreasonable sexual standards that damage people and relationships. Women on television are portrayed as easy, and many men believe this unfortunately, so they think they can take advantage of men.

Stanford University has 259 reported sexual assaults from 1996-2013 and only 1 student was expelled. This statistic is unbelievable because it shows that colleges truly do not care about these victims and they are most likely living in fear that the predator will find them again. It is rare you hear someone get expelled for rape, but it’s common to hear that someone gets expelled for cheating on a test. How is this okay? How are people supposed to feel safe on campus knowing that their college most likely will not do much about sexual assault? If predators are not removed from campus, they are extremely likely to do it again. According to The Hunting Ground, it is the repeated rapists that are the core of this problem. One statistic states “Less than 8% of men in college commit more than 90% of sexual assaults.” One fact The Hunting Ground covered is that the percentage of rapes reported to the police in the U.S. that lead to an arrest was 26%. It is horrifying to be a young woman and to think that if I was reporting a sexual assault to my school and they don’t do anything about it and then knowing the police most likely won’t do anything about it sounds like a nightmare.