Addressing campus rape culture with the Core

Article here. Excerpt:

'Yes, the title is an exercise in hyperbole. Explaining campus rape culture goes far beyond the musings of a college junior. It is rooted in social structures that perpetuate sexism, in a culture that promotes the mistreatment of women, and can never be fully solved with a simple solution. Regardless, the administration seems to have overlooked a fairly obvious solution that could mitigate, though not end, the rape culture that afflicts our campus—adding a women and gender studies course as either a stand-alone requirement in the Core Curriculum or as an option to fulfill the Global Core.
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On campus, women’s socialization to take up less space—physically and in conversations—has manifested itself in some female students and faculty feeling an obligation to minimize their presence. In our classes, female teachers who are stricter are more harshly judged by students than their male counterparts, and female students are less likely to speak up, due to a lifetime of conditioning to be more complacent. In our hookup culture, women who are sexually active are referred to as “sluts,” while men are “players.” In cases of sexual assault, while students may not obviously blame victims, they do often insinuate how the victim’s poor decision-making may have resulted in their rape—how dressing too tightly, drinking too much, or staying out too late should be avoided to not get raped. Rape culture is ultimately not a Columbia-specific issue, but it is a problem that Columbia has a responsibility to address.
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Adding a mandatory women and gender studies course to the university’s Core Curriculum could help address the ignorance that often underlies rape culture. A long-standing criticism of the Core has been that the classes are often limited in scope, lack literary diversity, and fail to account for the female voice. In our classes, women are expected to read the works of men and learn something from them. Now, let’s give all students the opportunity to read works about and by women and learn something from us. Together, we can build a foundation that addresses campus rape culture.'