TW: Sexual Assault
What are your expectations of university? Most likely it will include making new friends, learning your course, house parties, clubbing nights, society events, sports socials and countless others. The thrill and excitement of university, hyped up as some of the ‘best years’ of your life, often leaves us eager to experience the wild shenanigans and the ups and downs that young adulthood offers. However, this eagerness can make us blindsided, looking through rose-covered glass, with the inability to shed light on the darkness of what university can be. How vulnerable women (especially women of colour) are to a system designed to protect attackers and discredit the stories that have suffered. I want to share my story of being a first year at university. It certainly has not been an easy one.
I consider myself to be quite a social person. I love to work hard, but I love to party harder. Even more so, I want to see the people around me having a good time. The first week was a blast with my flatmates, genuinely some of the few times where everything was so carefree. I started trusting one guy I met. We started seeing each other a lot. One time I was in my room, looking at my laptop doing something I can't remember. I heard a knock with a reply that indicated it was him. I told him to come in. He immediately tried it on, hands up my private parts, kissing, leaving me no space for me to think. He previously knew that I had an issue with boundaries. He only ceased after me saying stop thrice, and I just remember being in a panic state. I had let him kiss me, so I blamed myself for my reaction. I remember being very mad at myself, on the call to some sixth-form friends, saying "How could I let this happen". "Did I not have any strength to say no immediately?" He later apologised saying I could report him if I wanted, with him upset about how he treated me. I forgave him because he seemed deeply remorseful about what he did. He got with two other girls some weeks later, and we ended our situation. I remember feeling like such an idiot, a fool for believing all of it. Now I felt like I couldn’t report it because it would make me look spiteful, and I mean after all I did forgive everything. I’m not a victim of any of this. So, I let it be.
The next time was after a party. I don’t recall much of what happened. It was for someone’s birthday. I’m aware I’m a lightweight so by the time I had one or two drinks I was already tipsy. This girl walks in who I say hi to. I say to her I’m already drunk. The night continues and we get closer. I drink more, she drinks some. I don't know who initiated anything but I’m pretty sure she did. The rest I don’t remember apart from flash memories of someone on top of me, me lying down on the bed. I remember waking up the next day in my room completely naked, vomit in my hair, on my bed sheet, across the carpet of my floor and in a pile of clothes that were soaked in the middle. My first thought when waking up was that nobody cared. That I was just an object to be used for other people’s pleasure and to be discarded when not wanted. I remembered I got with a girl and so I asked her what happened. I ran upstairs to her room and immediately asked her if she was okay. She said she was fine. She told me that she put me downstairs and that we “did stuff” that included touching within those areas and stopped when I vomited and returned to her room. She initially told me to tell nobody about it, that she was bi-curious, and I was her first time getting with a girl. I agreed to it all, terrified that I had overreacted, that it was my fault anyway, I shouldn’t have gotten that drunk. The panic and fear remained for the rest of the day.
A common theme when reflecting on my experiences is less to do with what happened to me and more to do with whether my reaction is valid or not, with much of my panic stemming from whether my truth is enough. More on the emphasis on how they would feel, rather than how I felt. When I finally left that flat I became obsessed with whether I was lying, maybe I was making it up in my head or that I was a spiteful bitch. Self-criticism was a way of coping and deflecting away from the hurt I felt from what had happened.
I decided to report to Report + Support after the second incident happened about both events. Trust me, reporting is not an enjoyable experience. Imagine telling your love life to an older white man and woman and then asking for details about “how” exactly it happened. After all that stress, I would have hoped that I would have gotten an apology. I didn’t want anything to go further, I just wanted them to recognise what had happened, only for my investigation to be dropped for insufficient evidence. I was just about to enter my accommodation when I got the email, only for me to freeze later. It felt like every negative thing I thought about myself was true. That my experience wasn’t valid, that I wasn’t believed at all.
It also wasn’t easy hearing other stories of white women gaining success in their investigations, although I am thrilled that they had found justice. Two people I know (one directly and the other indirectly) managed to get their cases through with one of the perpetrators being kicked out. As a young black woman, I am very aware of the structural oppression that is placed on people like me daily. I have the unfortunate case of experiencing that in the world while growing up (an experience that many people of colour will relate to). Despite this, my time in this university has uncovered how embedded these structures are, how the step is twenty times higher for people who look like me and despite my best efforts, the strength required to fight these systems is too much of a burden for a nineteen-year-old to carry, alongside the regular stress that university offers in academic work, social life and eating food on time. I would like to say that I could do it all, but unfortunately, I don’t want to be occupied with all this pressure and stress that comes with reporting, let alone going through an assault. The university complaints procedure Report + Support, left me helpless, with much of the support being dependent on the proactivity of victims, which doesn’t work for university students. Many of us can barely wake up before noon and the idea that we must arrange appointments with an already packed schedule (of course depending on the subject) while dealing with the trauma, reinforces the idea that we were the problem from the beginning, that it is up to us to fix what happened, when realistically we did nothing wrong.
In 2019, Warwick University had its scandal with the discovery of its ‘rape chats’ within a Facebook group chat that included 11 young male students. A scandal that enraged many women on campus and across other universities with wild-spread protests being led. Despite the outrage, I have heard and experienced enough horrors to know for certain that all the work and sacrifice made by those students not so long ago were not enough to offset the culture and lack of education people have surrounding boundaries and consent. I came to Warwick like any other woman with hopes, dreams and ideas to make something of myself, to find out who I am. Yet, I have been burdened with the knowledge that people are not as they seem and that you need to be protected by your friends in university. Although Warwick is notorious for its scandal, I believe this is something all universities have. Warwick just got caught lacking.
This led me to think that the nature of these assaults is not necessarily as evil-intentioned as they may seem. Why do they occur so frequently? Very rarely will you see assaults that actively try to harm an individual (although this does happen and shouldn’t be removed from the conversation). More so, assaults occur more coercively, with societal pressure, lack of communication and a bad mix of horny teenagers with very little emotional maturity. Often attackers do not know they are assaulting unless called out upon, in which they either recognise the pain that they cause (less likely) or will (more likely) get defensive or manipulate victims, to downplay the severity of such acts. Furthermore, it seems that sexual assault is not taken nearly as seriously. It is one of the few acts that can’t be excused, the intentions of which are purely selfish and leaves the victim more susceptible to mental health illnesses such as depression, anxiety, personality disorders, c-PTSD and suicidal ideation, just from an individual exhibiting power over another. The lack of consideration and care that I’ve heard and seen is frighteningly worrying. Rape culture describes a culture that normalises sexual violence intending to victim-blame those who have survived such events, with the phenomenon being questioned and outright denounced by others as a myth or left-wing rhetoric. I can assure you this is not the case. If anything, this rebuttal indicates the underlying misogyny (and misogynoir) in the wake of a pandemic of cases spreading. A generation of teenagers and young adults now living with the burden of self-hatred for what was done to them.
And to anyone who has experienced sexual assault in university. Know that you are believed, that your experiences are real and valid and that your choice to report or remain silent is not a reflection of how strong you are. You are strong for getting up the next day, strong for putting faith in humanity again and strong for continuing with your degree. I understand how isolating this experience can be, the mixed feelings of guilt, shame, hurt and anger. Know that you are not alone in this, and it was never your burden to carry.
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