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HABR | Rape Culture and Our Friends
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Two weeks ago, a leaked tape released audio of Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, turning away a substantial amount of his voters and government supporters. The next week, I was with a friend and looked over his shoulder to see messages from his fraternity’s group chat referring to women with the sentiment: “if you’re not going to fuck them, what’s the point?” When I expressed my concern, someone else replied, “I didn’t say you should look.” My friend looked away and smiled awkwardly, uncomfortable enough for me to assume he knew something was wrong, but not uncomfortable enough to do anything about it. “Just locker room talk, right?” I wanted to ask sarcastically, but I held my tongue. What I saw was just a small incident, though one of many; but this article isn’t about frats. We all know the statistics, 1 in 5 women and 1 in 16 men will be sexually assaulted in college.