Battling sexual assault by focusing on men

Pic from Grant Neufeld.
There’s a great article in Minnesota’s Star Tribune about college activists’ attempts to focus sexual assault training and education on men.

Instead of teaching women not to walk alone at night or to carry Mace, some colleges are trying something much harder — changing college men.
…”The fact of the matter is that prevention comes down to, largely, males. Because males are primarily the ones perpetrating these crimes,” said Lauren Pilnick, sexual violence education coordinator at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

The piece also tells the story of Tyler Jones, a senior at the University of Minnesota who went through sexual assault prevention training and found himself using that education in a barroom exchange:

“Hey, see that girl over there?” Jones recalled an acquaintance asking, nodding toward a woman he wanted to take home. “She’s almost drunk. Not quite drunk enough. … What shot should I buy her?”
There was a time, Jones says, when he might have laughed off the remark. Not anymore.
“You want to buy her something really strong to like, basically knock her out?” Jones, a University of Minnesota senior, recalled saying. “Man, that’s not right. That’s rape. That’s sexual assault.”
The acquaintance looked stunned. “Whatever,” he mumbled, and walked away.

I think moments like these are incredibly important: Having men name assault, and calling it what it is to their peers – especially in a culture that so often puts the focus of sexual assault prevention on women.