The latest in a string of sexual assaults produced the same, tired response from administration. A student is raped in Kistler. The response? Women are told to be on guard. “Trust your instincts.” On the face of it, not really offensive. However, the implication is. Why should women always have to be on guard? Why is it our responsibility to constantly live in fear of our environment?

Kistler is a locked, secure building. How did an assailant get in? He wasn’t a student. Why was he let into the building? Why in the world shouldn’t women in that building be able to feel safe? Why should we have to live in fear when we pay just as much tuition as men? Why isn’t GVSU asking these questions? Because its easier to tell women that it’s their responsibility to never let their guard down. The message is quite clear. Even in a locked, secure facility – it’s our responsibility to live in fear.

Every response to a rape this year has been the same. The message is always to women. What we’re supposed to do or not do. Where we should or shouldn’t go, who we should or shouldn’t go to a party with. This is outrageous. We are not the ones out raping and robbing people. The MEN are raping women.

Why aren’t men given the message to stop raping women? Why aren’t they told that GVSU will not tolerate any form of intimidation, violence or similar conduct to ANY student? I am so tired of this same, sexist response. Perhaps a few facts are in order:

Fact: The overwhelming majority of rapes are committed by a man known to a woman. So to tell women “not to go home with strangers” is ridiculous. Fact: Rape is not about sexual gratification. It is about power, humiliation and hatred toward women. It doesn’t matter what she wears, how she looks, where she walks or how much she drinks.

A rapist has a very disturbed, violent, deviant personality. This is not someone who should be allowed access into a dorm where he doesn’t live. It’s an outrage that the administration is telling every female on campus that we have no other choice but to constantly be afraid.

Every woman that attends GVSU has the same right as a man to live and learn without fear. We pay a lot of money to this university and I, for one, hold this administration responsible for the welfare and safety of all its students and faculty. If GVSU can’t guarantee the safety of its female students, then perhaps all male students ought to have a curfew. Of course this is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous to tell all women to be on guard and afraid.

Stop sending these sexist and insulting messages. The message sent needs to address the behavior of men, not women.

GVSU graduate student, MPA program