“Campus Rape Hysteria”

I came across this sign on the way to one of my lectures this past week. It irritated me, and I took this picture to show a friend later. But then one of my students came up to me after class and told me how she was being sexually harassed by another student in a particularly vulgar way. And I got angry. As anyone who is paying attention knows, Trump’s rise and election has emboldened the people who had previously been quiet about their misogyny, racism, and jingoism. While I can’t directly blame Trump for my student harasser or for this event, I can state without much doubt that discourse about sexual harassment and sexual assault has devolved over the last year. And if we don’t call it out, it will get worse. Here’s me calling it out. I’ve annotated the sign to point out all of its problems, obvious and not.
[image_mapper id=”2″]