Author: Sumsad Akter

Rape Myth Acceptance In College Students: A Literature Review

Accepting rape myths is very dangerous, especially the myth that says, “the rapists are often strangers”. I strongly disagree with this myth and believe. In my opinion or personal experience, I would say, the rapists are often known people”. Our society is very much conservative and strict about the sex topic. Nobody wants to talk about that, parents do not want to say anything positive about sex. Educational institutions don’t give proper education about sex. As a result, we even don’t have any clear idea about sexual harassment or assault. Sometimes we don’t even understand that we are already the victim of sexual assault. For this misunderstanding most of the time we keep getting sexual harassment from very close one, also from the family members.

I remember, when I was in seven grade, in my Home Economics textbook, there was a chapter about puberty. My teacher asked us to finish this chapter at home and she never talked about that chapter.  But I felt, that time it was a very important chapter for me. where schools refuse to talk about puberty, sex education is far away. In my point of view, proper sex education should be available in every educational institution. By this education, we will able to have a clear idea about sex. Having the wrong information and idea can make the situation more dangerous.

Parents should agree about the importance of sex education to protect their child from unexpected harassment and sexual assault. I think parents should give appropriate information about sex based on children’s age. Without proper education, we will never reduce sexual harassment.

Bathroom Battlegrounds and Penis Panics

Using a public bathroom is a big challenge for trans gender or gender variant people. There is a big chance of harassment for transgender while they use a public bathroom. Schilt demonstrated about the bathroom bill and presented different examples and point of views about it. I strongly support the bathroom bill legislation because it is against gender inequality or gender discrimination. Like cisgender people, Trans or gender variant people should have the right to use a public bathroom without any fear. If there is a restriction for using a public bathroom, it is very uncomfortable and dangerous for transgender people. Very often they have faced harassment and shameful situations about their gender identity. The most important thing is, there was no satisfactory reason against that legislation. Some opponents brought the safety and privacy reason as the issue against bathroom bill, but there was no evidence to support their reasons. Also, anti-supporters presented their opinions more violently. In addition, some media presented their views very unfair and disrespectful way. For instance, A Maryland Group used, “do you want men going into the ladies room”. Using “men” for trans-women is unfair. They also used an image where it was showing that a trans-woman was looking at the woman by the top of the bathroom door. In this case, they compared trans-women as a sexual predator, which was a misleading message and very unhealthy presentation. The funny thing was, everyone was worrying about trans gender female, nobody was thinking about transgender male. In this case, it is very clear that having a penis is a real problem or pain. Which means the existence of male part refers to the existence of danger. In my thinking, it seems like there was another discrimination going on. They were trying to say, the people with male organ are the universal sexual predator or universal rapist.