"i've spent years walking sidewalks at night"

Let's talk about sexual violence on college campuses.

I have been on Yik Yak for awhile, an application for making anonymous "yaks" on college campus. Trine's is not a great place for anyone who is not part of the majority. Fatphobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia are all pretty rampant there. This particular yak does not come from our campus, thankfully, but there were so many issues with the Trine community's yakking (I did not make this word up) that IT actually blocked it from Trine's internet. It is now only available on personal data plans.

This, of course, is a horrible, horrible thing to say. It normalizes rape initially, saying that if a man is aroused he is entitled to sex no matter what, and on top of that fetishizes fat (and ugly) women in a disgusting manner. The implications of this as to a male mindset are horrifying enough. If a man feels that entitled, what does it say about the rest of men? However, in the interest of self-preservation, I am more interested in what this means for women encountering men on college campuses.

Phaedra Starling coined the term "Schroedinger's Rapist," and I have lived much of my life with this in mind. Derived from Schroedinger's Cat, the theory refers to how not all men rape, but any man could potentially be a rapist. Knowing that people like the above yakker exist just creates an environment in which women must be constantly aware of their surroundings for fear of becoming a news headline. This has come to the attention of college campuses recently as sexual assault has started to become more widely covered in the media, but that doesn't change the reality for most women on campus. As reports of rape and sexual violence go up nationwide due to the dispelling of some of the stigma around violence against women and people becoming more aware, there is little change, as far as I can see, as to what women fear.

Perhaps saddest of all, I cannot even imagine a world in which I am not always a little afraid.