Why Should Colleges Care?
There is no doubt that the discourse around sexual assault is definitely problematic, or simply avoided in general. Therefore for my infographic, I chose to visualize sexual assault on college campuses across The United States; as a college student, this issue is extremely imperative to me. Not only is it important to me to discuss sexual assault, I also chose to illustrate a more holistic perspective and include men in my infographic, as I feel that they are often left out when it comes to the conversation of sexual assault. This happens in two ways, men are either left out because sexual assault is only perceived to happen to women, or they turn a blind eye to the conversation, because society labels sexual assault as a ‘women’s issue,’ therefore intrinsically exempting men from taking responsibility upon the issue. As Jackson Katz mentions in his TED Talk,
“This is one of the key characteristics of power and privilege, the ability to go unexamined, lacking introspections, in fact being rendered invisible…in the discourse about issues that are primarily about us [men/dominant groups]” (Katz, 2013).
With this in mind, let us dive into more detail regarding my infographic.
For the first panel on my infographic, I chose to use those statistics in order to provide the audience with a broader picture of sexual assault on college campuses. I wanted to highlight the difference in experience between women and men, while men do experience sexual assault, women experience sexual assault more than 3 times as frequently. In compliment, I used bathroom sign symbols to help the audience visualize the severity of 1 in 5 and 1 in 16.
For the second panel on my infographic, I decided to utilize that statistic to shed awareness to the fact that most victims are silent sufferers, and the danger of having majority of rapists still walking around college campuses. This then leads to my next statistic, (in the third panel) which showcases that majority of male rapists attempt or complete repeated rapes. This leaves many students vulnerable, as majority of rapists do not face any consequences for their disgusting actions. Therefore, for panel two, I chose a circle graph to illustrate 90% with a fitting emoji un top of it. And for panel three, I chose to use a donut graph to illustrate the weight of 63%.
When it came to choosing an outside statistic, I automatically knew I wanted to utilize one that discusses rape kits on campus, as that has been conversed about a lot on campus due to USG elections. Many senators were promising to bring rape kits onto campus, however the fact that USC doesn’t have them in the first place is extremely unsettling.
To tie everything together, I chose to make use of the last section of my infographic to bring attention to the disastrous effects of sexual assault, as well as why colleges should care. I chose to visualize 81% of women and 35% of men by ‘filling’ symbols, as both short term and/or long term impacts drain and overtake a persons life and wellbeing. And lastly, I implemented a bar graph to prove to the audience how high the numbers of underreported rapes are, and how close sexual assault is to being the most underreported crime in The United States.
Works Cited:
https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-a bout-sexual-violence_0.pdf
http://www.rmpbs.org/blogs/news/rape-kits-can-be-hard-to-find-for-college-students/
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