2008 Woodie Awards
FIGHTING VIOLENCE
Students march to raise awareness
By Rachel Seeman
Rocket News Editor
Issue date: 10/7/05 Section: News
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"You have the right to have a safe campus here," Vice President of Student Life Robert Watson said.
Watson said students cannot be their best in the classroom or in extracurricular activities until they feel safe.
"Unfortunately, even on the Slippery Rock campus, even tonight, a young woman will feel unsafe," Watson said.
Watson said it will take one person at a time, students, faculty, staff, community and alumni, to stop the violence.
Slippery Rock University was formerly ranked the second safest campus out of all the college campuses in Pennsylvania.
At the time, President Robert Aebersold initiated a lighting campaign to add more lights on campus to make SRU the safest campus.
Every two minutes a woman is raped. Every nine seconds a woman is abused by husbands or male partners, Cindy LaCom, an English professor, said.
More than 50 people showed up for the candlelight march.
"I'm thrilled with this crowd, but I would like to see it multiplied by 30," LaCom said. "Studies prove media violence contributes to aggressive behavior in our society."
LaCom provided examples of violence in music, television, radio and books.
She also recited lyrics from artists such as Korn, Eminem and Eric Clapton that contain sexual and violent imagery.
"The sad part is, lyrics that sell are often really violent and are directed toward women," LaCom said.
LaCom said that 80 percent of video games that young people like to play contain violence. She said 21 percent of that depicts violence against women.
LaCom said she disagrees with authors Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer of "A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion," who argued "rape in its very essence is a sexual act that men are biologically hardwired to rape women."
Studies have proven that men who watch movies with violence against women accept the violence easily, and they become desensitized, LaCom said.
Forty percent of men in the study thought about raping a woman only as long as they wouldn't get caught, LaCom said.
Advocate Carol Holland of the Counseling Center at SRU said good things are being done.
"I'm so happy to see so many men here, but the violence still persists," Holland said.
