Last week three Canadian universities published the results of a study that looked at the effectiveness of a sexual assault prevention program aimed at training first year female students in self-defence and awareness of sexual assault.
Was it a success? The numbers suggest that it was. The risk of rape for the 451 women in the program was halved, down from 10% among women in the control group to 5% among women who received the training.
The Universities of Calgary, Windsor and Guelph all took part in the program that teaches new female students to understand what constitutes sexual assault, as well as physical self-defence tactics to guard against it. According to Janet Mee, director of UBC Access and Diversity, UBC did not have the option to participate in the study but she appreciated aspects of the program.
“The reason we like this program so much, or this training that they investigated, is that it’s not just about victim-blaming,” said Mee. “Of a 12-hour course they spend about two hours on self-defence. It includes a piece around understanding the behaviours … and that social impact. But there’s also the piece around positive sexuality and creating boundaries.”
The program is 12 hours of training that incorporates different methods of teaching young women about sexuality and assault.
“The piece that I think is core that probably didn’t come out as much as it could have … is that the core construct is to help women … to really understand the impact of how women are socialized,” said Mee. “We’re really taught to be polite and kind and to not cause up a scene and to trust people that we know.”
Mee notes that the most heavily publicized aspect was that of teaching women physical self-defence tactics. Although she appreciates that the program avoided the 'look out for strangers, don't walk home alone advice' so often given, instead it focused on "how you push somebody away if it’s somebody that you know," said Mee.
However, other parts of the sessions focused on educating women about bystander intervention and a healthy view of sexual boundaries, “so helping women to explore their own sexuality in relationships and to be able to know what their boundaries are and express their desires,” said Mee.
The noticeable reduction in risk of assault for the women in the program marks an accomplishment that is not very common in this field.
“I don’t think there have been any programs at the university level that have shown, that focused like specifically on perpetrators, that have been successful. But it is sort of a burgeoning field and it is also a very difficult field to study for a variety of reasons,” said Josey Ross, assistant manager of the AMS's Sexual Assault Support Centre.
Despite the unusual success, Ross noted that a program such as this may have several disadvantages.
“I do see a few downsides, one is that it that I think it’s a very tricky thing to talk about what women and people of other genders who potentially could be targeted can do to prevent violence because it can veer very easily into victim blaming,” said Ross. “The last piece that concerns me, and I’ve seen brought up in some opinion pieces is the idea that, you know, yes the women who receive this training had a lower risk of assault but that risk basically gets transferred onto someone else.”
Should a program similar to this come to UBC, Ross said that she would rather see a course with pieces of these sessions but alongside teachings that “also are looking at perpetrators.”
UBC has yet to see a program such as this offered to students. It is uncertain whether this may be in store for the university in the future, but Ross said there are currently a lot of conversations going on about the form prevention efforts should take.
"There certainly are academics who study in this area at UBC, but there is very little research actually across the country that looks at effective models," said Mee. "We’re very interested as we move into designing a comprehensive education plan to also at the same time how we’re going to evaluate it, how we’re going to assess it and how we’re going to contribute to the dialogue across the country."
With files from Moira Warburton.