Stepping Up to Stop Sexual Assault -Bystander Intervention is a small part of the solution
BYSTANDER INTERVENTION is so easy to grasp, even by the most inexperienced college freshman, that the program may well be the best hope for reducing sexual assaults on campuses. Mostly it is common sense: If a drunk young man at a party is pawing a drunk young woman, then someone nearby (the bystander) needs to step in (intervene) and get one of them out of there. Of course, that can be tricky at times.
Jane Stapleton, a University of New Hampshire researcher who runs bystander intervention programs at colleges around the country and in Europe, tells students they’ll need to be creative about outmaneuvering aggressors. Among the diversions she discusses: suddenly turning on the lights at a party or turning off the music; accidentally spilling a drink on the guy; forming a conga line and pulling him away from the woman he’s bothering and onto the dance floor. One of her favorites came from a young woman who approached her drunken girlfriend and said, loudly, “Here’s the tampon you asked for.”
The goal is to stop bad behavior before it crosses the line from drunken partying to sexual assault. “We’re definitely not looking to create Captain Bystander here,” Ms. Stapleton says. In the best of circumstances, a drunken aggressor won’t realize he’s been had.