1. Sexual assault on college campuses is predominantly committed by men towards women.
2. Prevention programs that engage men as allies in ending sexual violence against women are more effective than solely teaching women how to protect themselves.
3. The Men's Project, a program using an ecological/public health model for preventing sexual violence, was successful in increasing awareness and empathy among male participants towards issues of gender and sexual assault prevention.
The article "Preventing Sexual Assault Through Engaging College Men" discusses the issue of sexual assault on college campuses and the importance of engaging men in prevention efforts. The article highlights the fact that sexual assault is primarily committed by men against women, and that traditional prevention efforts have focused on teaching women how to protect themselves rather than engaging men as allies in ending sexual violence.
The article presents a case study of the Men's Project, a program designed to engage college men in preventing sexual violence. The program uses an ecological/public health model for preventing sexual assault, which involves identifying risk factors at the individual, intrapersonal, societal, and cultural levels. The program content includes gender socialization, privilege, intersections of identities and politics of oppression, sexual assault myths and facts, rape-supportive environments and how to support a survivor, and sexual assault prevention/bystander intervention strategies.
The article reports on four research questions: what did the men gain from participating in the Men's Project? What did they learn? How did their attitudes and behaviors associated with rape and towards women change as a result of participating? And how did their bystander intervention knowledge, skills, and behavior change?
The results show that participants gained awareness of gender issues, LGBT issues and homophobia, information about sexual assault prevention strategies, empathy for women's experiences in certain situations, understanding of privilege related to other identities besides gender, camaraderie with other men concerned about these issues, credibility in interventions due to participation in the program, recognition of sexist language use among all-male groups including body language and artifacts in physical environments. Participants also learned about rape myths such as victim-blaming based on dress or behavior; most assaults being stranger assaults; male entitlement to dominance; consent once given cannot be taken away; men must initiate sex. They also learned about ongoing consent processes.
While this study provides valuable insights into engaging college men in preventing sexual violence through programs like the Men's Project using an ecological/public health model for prevention efforts that address risk factors at multiple levels (individuals' attitudes/behaviors/beliefs/values), it has some limitations. For example:
- The sample size is small (28 participants) which limits generalizability
- The focus groups were conducted by graduate students who may have had biases
- There is no control group for comparison
- There is no long-term follow-up data
- There is no discussion of potential risks associated with engaging college men in prevention efforts
- There is no exploration of counterarguments or alternative perspectives
- There is no discussion of potential unintended consequences or negative outcomes
Overall this article provides useful insights into engaging college men in preventing sexual violence through programs like the Men's Project using an ecological/public health model for prevention efforts that address risk factors at multiple levels (individual