On Feb. 26, a survey was released by university administration to the students of Carleton University entitled “Student Voices on Sexual Violence.” The survey was conducted on behalf of the Ontario government to gain a better understanding of sexual assault and harassment on campus.
Considering recent polls and statistics about sexual assault in society at large, this kind of survey is evidently a good thing to do.
There are, however, some glaring problems. The survey uses language I believe to be misleading, unclear, or flat-out incorrectly used considering their definitions. Due to the language having the potential to be interpreted in many ways, the data collected from this survey may not correctly identify our students’ issues with sexual assault.
Considering this objection, I feel it necessary to explain why I participated in the survey in the first place. To make things clear: I am against sexual assault. I am against rape, groping, and stalking. These are not acceptable behaviours, as they cause physical harm to victims in these situations. This survey seemed like one way I could contribute to a campus free of sexual assault and harassment.
Should I trust the data which will come from this survey considering how it uses certain language?
This confusion about how to understand basic concepts is particularly evident in the use of the term ‘sexual violence’ in the survey. A disclosure from the organizers of the survey states that the concept of sexual violence will be treated as “ . . . any sexual act or act targeting a person’s sexuality, gender identity or gender expression, whether the act is physical or psychological in nature . . . ” Sexual violence defined as such is too vague to be accurately understood by all participants of the survey.
If the severity of someone being raped—forced against the person’s will to have intercourse in whatever form that takes—is being conflated with the severity of someone being catcalled, we have a problem. Physical and psychological harm are not necessarily at the same level of severity, although both can be experienced at the same time.
The definition of violence in this context is being contorted. The Oxford English Dictionary defines violence as: “Behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.” This follows as well in the definition of assault: “Make a physical attack on.” An insult is not a physical assault.
It seems to me that such a conflation does two things: it over-inflates the statistics on who is truly suffering from sexual assault and it lessens the seriousness of the instances of legitimate sexual assaults that are occurring against our students.
My only hope for the outcome of the results from this survey is that there are no big headlines like “One out of every five students has suffered from sexual assault” (unless that is actually the case, in which case we have a massive problem that has gone totally undetected socially).
I hope that the forms of sexual assault will be broken down categorically with particular circumstances considered. I hope the object of this survey is not to generate eye-grabbing statistics, but to collect data that will help provide solutions for those who have suffered or are suffering from sexual assault.
