Students and faculty joined four panelists Monday night in an
open forum to discuss the issue of rape and sexual assault and how
to decrease it within the OU community. The discussion focused on
how the media’s depiction of rape negatively impacts society
and a victim’s willingness to speak out.

The forum, titled “It Takes a Village: Defeating Rape in
Our Communities,” was held by the Women’s Outreach
Center as part of Rape Awareness Week. The panel included Meta
Carstarphen, OU associate journalism professor, Betty Robbins,
women’s studies and film and video studies professor,
Christopher R. Krug, editor of The Oklahoma Daily; and Detective
John Bishop of the OU Department of Public Safety.

“I can’t think of any event on campus that is more
important than what you students have put together tonight,”
Robbins said.

Katie Stephens, University College freshman, said she attended
the forum to get more information about sexual assault and to make
herself more aware.

“I think [sexual assault] is very underrepresented,
especially in the dorms, because they want you to feel like
it’s a safe place,” Stephens said. “But
it’s not a safe place.”

Panelists began the forum by discussing the issue of rape.

Rape is not about sex but about anger, power and control,
Carstarphen said.

The stereotypical view society has is that a rapist is the
stranger hiding in the bushes, Krug said.

“That image is not true,” Krug said. “We need
to bust up the myths.”

In order to understand society’s view on rape, it is vital
to look at the media’s portrayal of rape and sexual assault,
Robbins said.

There are video and computer games that simulate rape against
women, Carstarphen said.

“We certainly need to be even more cognizant about how new
media are complicating these issues of violence against
women,” she said.

It is the media’s role to confront the issue of rape,
especially when it is occurring, Krug said. Most newspapers handle
occurrences of rape or sexual assault with a brief report on page
five or six, he said.

“There is silence about this issue in almost every
organizational level of our culture,” Krug said.
“It’s very frightening the way in which the culture
tries to keep it quiet.”

People do not want to hear that rapes are occurring in their
community, Bishop said.

“You don’t want to hear that in your community
there’s been five rapes,” Bishop said. “You want
to hear about good things.”

Only about one out of every 10 sexual assaults or rapes are
reported to the police, Bishop said.

“They don’t report it because they don’t want
to be further subjected to the scrutiny of the public eye,”
he said.

In order to change society’s mentality toward sexual
assault and rape, individuals can get involved in the media by
writing letters to the editors of publications or creating Web
sites, Carstarphen said.

“We have to have this sense of outrage,” she said.
“We can ask for certain stories to be told.”
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