#ItsOnUs

By Maddy McCarty and Nicole Crites

Inspired by the It’s On Us campaign, launched by the White House in 2014, Texas Tech Women’s Studies recognized National Call to Action week with three events about sexual assault awareness, consent and rape culture.

Tuesday’s event was called “Rape Myths on Trial.” It began with a video of Anne Munch, a prosecutor and advocate for victims of sexual violence, lecturing about an “unnamed conspirator” and ended with discussion among students.

Seth Kern, a senior mechanical engineering major from Marianna, Arkansas, was one of the two male students in attendance Tuesday. He is required to attend an event because of his enrollment in a women’s studies course this semester, but he also feels passionately about intervening and preventing sexual assault.

“Rape is one of those subjects where, especially as a guy in college, I can actually do something like intervening, talking to my friends, letting them know what’s going on,” he said. “Because it’s not like a backdoor thing, like they said on the video.”

Kern said he has noticed one major issues he learned about in his women’s studies class: sexual assault education tends to target women rather than men.

“We’re not talking to guys about how to not be rapists and how to intervene and how to help out,” he said.

Tricia Earl, unit coordinator and academic adviser for women’s studies, hosted an open forum Wednesday for students, faculty and staff to discuss the “It’s On Us” pledge.

Earl showed attendees video pledges by President Obama, celebrities, Tech’s Student Government Association, and the women’s studies department and asked students what they think we can all do to personally prevent sexual assault on Tech’s campus.

The last event, titled “Rape Culture: Know It When I See It,” took place Thursday. University of Massachusetts Department of Communication Lecturer Lynn Phillips and several UMass students defined rape culture and discussed how it could be changed.