DoucheArt

We're linking up for Sunday Confessions this week at More Than Cheese and Beer.  The prompt this week is... Regret.

One in four college women report surviving rape or attempted rape at some point in their lives.  When I first read the story of Emma Sulkowicz, the Colombia University Senior who is carrying a mattress around as part of a project titled "Mattress Performance" or "Carry that Weight" after being raped on campus and forced to attend school with her rapist...I wanted her to be our first "Diamond of the Week".

Somehow, it seems wrong though.  Nothing about the situation is wrong because of her, but it feels wrong to acknowledge someone for being brave, outspoken, and a survivor not only of rape but of a system that failed them.  

Emma Sulkowicz is a smart, incredible woman and it saddens me that her creativity and intelligence are being dedicated to making a statement and a piece about being failed by the system. 

It makes me wonder what our country and our world would be like if our brilliant and intelligent people were able to focus their talent, dedication, time, creativity and knowledge to something besides RAPE.  All over the country, the world, there are women fighting rape by educating others, by working and volunteering in outreach and crisis centers, by educating themselves to be advocates not just for themselves but for women who aren't able to do it, in courtrooms, in hospitals, in classrooms, in offices.  All that time spent fighting something that shouldn't have to be fought about anymore.  

What would the world be like if all of the women who dedicated themselves to standing up to rape didn't have to anymore and could dedicate themselves to something else?  What would they choose and how would it change things?

Emma Sulkowicz is brave.  She has shared the details of what happened to her in her room... a place that is supposed to be intimate, personal and safe.  She is walking around a campus carrying a mattress until someone does the right thing and she no longer has to attend school with the man who not only raped her but was accused of raping two other students.  

Isn't Colombia University supposed to be a big deal?  Aren't there supposed to be brilliant minds there?  What don't they see?  What don't they grasp?  

As much as I wanted this to be our first Diamond of the Week post, it is sadly and regrettably also a Douche of the Week.  Because without people like the administrative panel at Colombia that conducted the hearing into Emma Sulkowicz's case... this story wouldn't exist.

What kind of Douchebags puts "educated" people who clearly don't know anything about sexual assault, working with assault victims, or apparently body structure and function on a panel to review rape cases?  

You fail, Colombia University.  Seriously.    

I hope when all is said and done, the administration comes to find out how wrong they are for handling so many cases the way they've been handled because it is really and truly disgusting.  They should regret choosing to put people who clearly have no idea what they are doing on a panel to handle cases when they obviously know nothing about what and how things happen.  It is unbelievable.  And above all... I hope the people at Columbia who AREN'T doing the right thing eventually realize and regret forcing a young woman to have to endure and do what Emma Sulkowicz is having to do right now in order to get them to do the right thing.