Responsibility to make sure students are safe

For some, the sex-themed games and excessive drinking of orientation week camps are all good fun,  but behind the laughter are many students who feel uncomfortable with and violated by what happens. Mojo responds to a comments about an article published recently that highlights the less savoury side of the first-year student experience.

By JASON WALLS, mojo editor

Recently mojo published an article exposing some of the negative experiences students had had at university camps. It was one of our most widely read posts and ignited some debate on social media.

One former camp leader commented, in a hastily deleted Facebook thread, that he found the article to be “extremely unbalanced”. He said that while camps might not be “everyone’s cup of tea”, in his experience, the vast majority of first-year students had thoroughly enjoyed them.

Others suggested that it was all just “part of growing up”, and if students didn’t like it, then “don’t go to arts camp”.

There is no doubt that many students enjoy the camps and their desire to avoid the fun police is understandable, but their attitude is misguided.

A survey of university students conducted last year by the National Union of Students found 48 per cent of 1500 female students surveyed had either been raped or “had sex without giving consent” (which meets the standard definition of rape). Another 36 per cent had been subject to other unwanted sexual experiences.

In any other context, the suggestion there was no serious cultural problem in a community in which nearly half the female population had been a victim of rape would be considered ludicrous (see the various ADFA scandals).

There is no evidence to suggest that students have been raped at these camps, and no reason to doubt most participants have no regrets about signing up. But in the face of such shocking statistics, and given the openly sexualised nature of the camps (as evidenced by their own Facebook page), serious questions need to be asked.

To think that an “environment where girls are pressured into pleasing guys and it all revolves around the guys’ pleasure rather than respecting our right to choose what we want to do”, as one participant in an arts camp last year described it, in no way contributes to the sort of culture that gives rise to the statistics outlined above would be naïve in the extreme.

When you’re running an event where many of the participants are made to feel “sexually uncomfortable”, as was reported to CAS vice-president Tom Karunaratne, and where this kind of pressure is considered by organisers to be “inevitable”, then you need to rethink your business model, no matter how much fun you’re having.

No one’s right to enjoy themselves should come at the expense of anyone else’s right not to feel intimidated or coerced, sexually or otherwise, even if they are in the minority.

As reporter Hadas Kuttner's article points out, clubs have a responsibility to ensure none of their members engage in sexist or “otherwise unbecoming” conduct. Additionally, Monash Student Association rules prohibit promotion of “the excessive consumption of alcohol through drinking games or activities based solely around the consumption of alcohol”.

This being the case, it must be asked how – if at all – these rules are being enforced.

The fact that only 3 per cent of students surveyed by the NUS reported their assault to the university makes MONSU’s assurances that they will take action “in the event that someone does feel like it’s over-sexualised” and makes a complaint, ring rather hollow.

If universities are serious about addressing what is clearly a deeply ingrained cultural problem, action is needed to ensure campus life is a positive experience for all students.

The CAS's apparently sincere commitment to change is a welcome start, but there is clearly still a long way to go.