Students and representatives from various student advocacy groups came together in the Schine Student Center on Monday to celebrate the launch of the #NotAskingForIt video, which highlights the issue of sexual assault victim blaming and promotes awareness about the reality of sexual assault. The video is part of the Office of Health Promotion's campaign, "Got Consent? Be S.U.R.E."
The event featured light refreshments, discussions and #NotAskingForIt videos from other schools around the country. Originating at Wesleyan University [10], the purpose of the video series is to shed light on the issue of full consent and how the absence of “no” does not mean “yes," according to Samantha Berenstein, Public Relations senior and Account Supervisor at Hill Communications [11], which is a public relations firm on Syracuse University’s campus. In the video, students perform different dances to highlight that no type of dancing invites sexual assault.
“Our role in this is to make people more aware of the campaign, and therefore talk more about getting consent,” Berenstein said.
Hill Communications was in charge of promoting the event and has been working closely with the Office of Health Promotion [12] since September. They oversaw the making of Syracuse’s own #NotAskingForIt video, created the Facebook event page, pitched to different media and invited friends and peers to attend.
“The video was our idea to put everything together with the Not Asking For It campaign, to bring it to the SU campus,” said Mónica Ramos, Public Relations major and Account Executive for Hill Communications.
The Office of Health Promotion has been working since the fall on the campaign, and is currently planning more events past Monday’s launch. Victim blaming has been a recent issue on many college campuses, and the office hopes this campaign will set the record straight, according to Jill Sneider, SU’s sexual and relationship violence prevention coordinator.
“No matter what you are wearing, where you are, who you’re with, what state of mind you are in, it is never the survivor's fault,” Sneider said.
Participants at the event expressed frustration with the issue of sexual assault and how it can be under-addressed by administration, especially after the closure of the Advocacy Center [13] at Syracuse University, said Public Relations freshman Greta Rosenblum.
“This is extremely important because sexual consent is an issue not only on college campuses but across the country,” said Rosenblum, “People need to be aware of what they are willing to do or not do. Many people are not aware of how they may be taken advantage of.”
The event concluded with discussion about sexual assault and how it personally affects the various student groups around campus, such as SASSE [14] or A Men’s Issue [15]. The groups hope to work together under this campaign in the future, said Sneider.
“We all want to go to a school that believes in having a safe community,” said Berenstein. “I think the easier it is for people to ask for consent, the less likely sexual assault is to happen.”
