Commentary: Blame rape perpetrator, not victim

"So, whose fault is it, anyway?" In response to the two recent rapes in the Jamaica Plain and Mission Hill area that have received a lot of media attention, women are being told on a daily basis, via flyers posted by Public Safety and articles in the newspaper, what they can do to reduce their chances of becoming a victim. This explicitly puts the fault on the victim, instead of focusing on the perpetrator, where all the fault belongs. 

There is nothing that women alone can do to prevent themselves from being raped. No amount of programming their phones to 9-1-1 and walking in pairs is going to keep them safe. While taking some precautions is necessary, it should in no way imply that a woman is responsible for getting raped.

Rape doesn't discriminate. It happens everywhere, and no amount of prevention or safety precautions taken by women can ensure their safety. The problem lies solely with the perpetrator. We hope this response will help lead to a broader dialogue, education and awareness.

The Public Safety/ SAFEnet flyers' exclusive focus on stranger rapes, while doing an adequate job of notifying students that the rapes occurred, have done nothing to educate women about the issue of sexual assault. The majority of sexual assaults, nearly 90 percent, are perpetrated by acquaintances of the victim, not by strangers (Massachusetts Department of Health). One in four college women will experience some form of sexual violence before graduation and in the overwhelming majority of these cases, it's not going to be somebody jumping out of a bush with a gun or other weapon. No weapon is needed. Typically, the only "weapon" needed is fear or coercion.

James Ferrier, associate director of public safety at Northeastern, was quoted in The Northeastern News on Oct. 6 saying each of us must take personal precautions to prevent ourselves from becoming a victim, and "each person must take some responsibility for what happens to them." It's interesting that Ferrier's comments refer to "each person," while the SAFEnet flyer refers only to women. 

Northeastern Public Safety has clearly framed this issue as a woman's responsibility to prevent herself from becoming a rape victim. Why do we tend to remove the blame from the perpetrator? Why aren't there flyers telling men how not to be aggressors? What about addressing why men rape instead of what women can do to prevent it? Rape is not a woman's problem. Rape is everyone's problem.

According to the national organization Men Can Stop Rape, one in 12 college males "admits to having committed acts that meet the legal definition of rape." In addition, 60 percent of men surveyed by the University of California at Los Angeles said that, if they knew they could get away with it, they would commit rape. This signifies the pervasiveness of acquaintance rape and the importance of holding perpetrators accountable instead of shifting the blame toward victims.

As a community, we need to come together to engage in a broader dialogue about sexual assault. Through education and awareness, we can place the blame where it belongs. Public Safety and the Northeastern community need to send a unified and consistent message that is supportive of women, holds perpetrators accountable and refuses to participate in and tolerate victim blaming. We live in a society that continues to blame victims for something that only we, as a community, can prevent. 

Until we stop sending messages, both implied and explicit, like those from Public Safety, rape victims and women will remain unsafe in our communities; perpetrators will continue to be unaware of the crimes they are perpetrating and will feel justified to continue acts of violence against women.

-- Jessica Copeland, Kristen Orazem and Meredith Strong are law students at the Northeastern University School of Law.