Lena Dunham and the cast of HBO’s Girls just released this sexual assault PSA, which questions the way society treats victims. The 90-second spot urges people to create a “safer, healthier environment for women to come forward” by listening to and supporting victims.
The White House’s new PSA is a call to action for men who see sexual assault about to happen, and asks them to do something to stop it.
As part of the ongoing “It’s On Us” campaign, which President Obama has said is about “condemning sexual assault as loudly as we should,” the new spot is focused on a party bystander who sees a young man stop a woman from leaving the party when she’d like to.
The ad comes as colleges and universities across the country enter into a “National Week of Action,” from Nov. 17-21, geared to motivate students to get involved in the “It’s On Us” campaign. According to White House research, bystander intervention programs help to change social norms and teach people to speak out.
“Bystander involvement can be very important, and oftentimes men underestimate other men’s attitudes toward violence,” Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the President, tells BuzzFeed. “They don’t understand that other men are opposed to violence, too. So if they get the sense that it’s OK [to intervene] because everyone else around the room feels the same way you do, the first person who gets up will inspire the next person to get up, and the next person and the next person.”
The self-aware PSA isn’t too wordy, though it does employ Jon Hamm’s velvety pipes.
CREDITS
Agency: Mekanism
CEO/President: Jason Harris
CD: David Horowitz
Head of Strategy: Eric Zuncic
Design Director: Albert Ignacio
Associate Director, Brand Manager: Caroline Moncure
Senior Producer: Kati Haberstock
Creative Technology Director: Sean Cosier
Senior Producer: Amber Cope
Production: PARK PICTURES_BYSTANDER TV
Director: Vincent Haycock
EP: Mary Ann Marino
Producer: Alex Fisch
Here’s the newest example of a clever invention that shouldn’t have to exist.
Undercover Colors is a line of chemically enhanced nail polish currently being developed by undergrads at North Carolina State University. The polish can reportedly detect the presence of date-rape drugs such as (one would assume) rohypnol in drinks and change color to indicate a warning.
So far, few details have been announced about the product, which a spokesperson tells the Triangle Business Journal is “in the R&D stage.” It got an early boost by winning a university entrepreneurship challenge called the Lulu eGames and from an early investor who contributed $100,000, the business journal reports.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the most frequently cited drugs used to incapacitate sexual assault victims are rohypnol (illegal in the U.S.), GHB (legal as a narcolepsy treatment) and ketamine (legal as an anesthetic for humans and animals).
So, it’s reasonable to guess that the Undercover Colors team is trying to develop a product that will react to those three drugs, possibly along with ecstasy (MDMA).
The nail polish, while innovative, is likely to re-open two long-running debates about date-rape drugs and rape prevention:
First, our society shouldn’t need tools to prevent rape, such as the recently launched Guardian Angel necklace that quietly alerts friends that the wearer is in trouble.
Second, date-rape drugs are far more rare than pop culture often leads us to believe. Reliable numbers are notoriously hard to come by, but a 2007 survey of female sexual assault victims attending colleges found that only 0.6 percent were sure they’d been slipped a drug, while another 1.7 percent suspected they had been given a drug.
In that same survey, 82 percent of victims reported being drunk, a stat which USA Today featured in its 2013 article about how alcohol is the most common drug used in sexual assault. “Roofies are very rarely—if ever—seen in real life,” an investigator told the newspaper.
Anyone who’s been active in rape prevention efforts knows that discussing alcohol can be volatile and extremely divisive. Pointing out the role of alcohol is often seen as synonymous with victim blaming, while the image of someone covertly spiking a drink with a dissolvable powder clearly conveys who’s at fault, making it a popular plot line for party-boy villains in movies and TV.
(Quick sidebar with a real-world example: A male friend of mine was actually drugged by two women while visiting Eastern Europe. He was with two friends, whom the girls had convinced to drink some very strong alcohol until they were incapacitated. When the girls realized mid-evening that my friend wasn’t drinking, they made him some hot tea. He passed out, woke up the next day to find their luggage stolen, and a doctor told him he almost certainly would have died if he’d had another cup of the drugged tea. So, it happens, but not always in the situations you might expect.)
If Undercover Colors becomes a national product, it’s hard to imagine many potential customers rushing out to buy it. In the end, if you’re careful enough to be mindful of being drugged, you’re probably careful enough to open, make or pour your own drink and politely decline anything else.
Hat tip to my friend Clair McLafferty, who among other things writes about cocktail science for Mental Floss.
When JWT Singapore was tapped by the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) to create an educational campaign about date rape, the agency decided to go in a different direction.
The result was Guardian Angel, a personal safety accessory line that looks like jewelry but is also designed to get women out of dangerous situations.
The $120 device, which can be worn as a necklace or bracelet, has a button that, hen pushed, automatically triggers a call to the wearer’s cell phone. That method is billed as a way for a woman receiving unwanted attention to create a convenient excuse to leave. If things become more serious (read: dangerous) the wearer can push the button and hold it down, sending a text alert to a designated contact, who will receive the wearer’s GPS coordinates and an automatically generated request for help.
While the idea is interesting and seems to be made with good intentions, there’s something problematic here: If you take a look at Guardian Angel’s website, you’ll notice it’s filled with cloudy backgrounds and waifish young women in white tops and little makeup. The image we’re presented with is one of innocence. While the visuals are probably supposed to look heavenly and angelic in the vein of the product name, the end result is that the Guardian Angel is a device to protect innocence.
Why is that a bad thing? Because sexual assault isn’t something that just happens to cute, unassuming young women. And sexual assault doesn’t have a gender or sexuality associated with it. (Yes, many sexual assaults do involve young men attacking young women, especially those that are widely reported and picked up by media outlets, but assaults don’t happen to a specific type of person.) Sexual assault is pervasive and upsetting and a huge issue in our culture, so let’s try to keep that in check while creating the visual idea of an assault victim.
On The Verge, Adi Robertson describes a deeper problem with the idea of everyday assault-prevention tools:
“That’s what’s wrong with the Guardian Angel’s gauzy, stereotypical femininity: it ends up normalizing rape as an unremarkable, if unfortunate, part of the female experience. The soothing language—making women ‘feel less vulnerable’ so they can ‘live their lives to the fullest’—smacks of the vagaries in tampon commercials. It’s something everyone knows about but nobody wants to hear about, and certainly nothing that we want to acknowledge is a shamefully common plague in our schools, our prisons, our armed forces, and almost every other social institution.”
Maybe if the Guardian Angel’s creators had more directly acknowledged how awful it is that we need a piece of technology like this to begin with, then maybe the mission could resonate more.
Via Fast Company.
We've seen #nomakeupselfies and #cockinasock, all in the name of cancer awareness, but the latest in viral activist hashtags is #EuNaoMereçoSerEstrupada, which translates to #IDontDeserveToBeRaped.
In a survey done by Brazil's Institute of Applied Economic Research, an astonishing 65.1 percent partly agreed with the statement that if a women is provocatively dressed, she deserves to be sexually assaulted. The results were met with public outcry—spearheaded by Brazilian journalist Nana Queiroz (shown above), and since, women have been posting photos of themselves partially nude with signs stating "I don't deserved to be raped," and, "No women deserved to be raped."
The survey results revealed other shocking information: 58.5 percent of people surveyed in Brazil agreed with the statement "If women knew how to behave, there would be less rape." In case you think the survey is an indictment of Brazilian men, it's worth noting that two-thirds of the respondents were women.
(Translation: "No woman deserves to be raped. I am ashamed of being a man and having to say something so obvious.")
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When it comes to sex, a reluctant "yes," "OK" or "sure" doesn't qualify as a green light, according to a Canadian campaign encouraging "enthusiastic consent."
"Real consent is mutual and sure. It is not muted, frail, hesitant, or afraid. It is never uncertain, assumed, or silent," the campaign explains on its website, MoreThanYes.ca.
Created by Students Nova Scotia, a coalition of campus organizations, the ads feature large swaths of white space with small, one-word headlines like "Fine" and "Sure." The text at the bottom reads, "If it's not loud and clear, it's not consent. It's sexual assault."
The ads were inspired by a recent regional study that found 95 percent of sexual assaults involving students occurred between acquaintances.
"We hope this campaign will be informative about everyone's responsibility to receive clear consent from their partner, without coercion, before engaging in sexual activity," Students Nova Scotia executive director Jonathan Williams said in a statement. "Seeking consent is not about avoiding a 'no,' it's about receiving an enthusiastic 'yes.' "
Check out three of the campaign's ads below. Hat tip to campaign coordinator @Allisomething on Twitter.
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