Discussing the 97% Women’s Sexual Assault Rate

By: Dani Sevilla

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Recently, you may have come accustomed to seeing a trend revolving around an incredibly sensitive topic, most relevant on social media. An issue presented with a percentage in the UK revealing that 97% of young women, ages 18-24, reporting they have been sexually assaulted and/or harassed (catcalling, groped without consent, r*pe, etc). The data was collected from a YouGov survey of over 1,000 women who had filled it out. Another interesting piece of the data showed that the women had a lack of faith in authorities when it came to reporting the assault. Only 4 percent of women reported to the authorities, and 45 percent of those women didn’t think that telling the authorities would do anything.

This topic started arising as a reaction because of the murder of a woman called Sarah Everard in the UK. Sarah Everard was a 33-year-old marketing executive who disappeared on March 3rd. She was just walking home from a friend’s house when she got kidnapped and murdered. This started the outrage all over the world of violence and sexual harassment towards women. This violence must end. This harassment must end.

As people from all over the world are raising awareness in protests and on social media. Thousands upon thousands of females sharing their stories, in hopes to raise awareness and provide a comfortable place for others having a hard time dealing with their stories. On an app called Tik Tok, these stories have been degraded by many men making jokes. The jokes are usually along the line of, “Come on guys, 97%? We can do better than that, let’s make it 100%!!” What is even more disturbing to this, are the comments on these tiktoks. They show support in sexually assaulting and harassing women. They consist of “I just made it 100%”, “Going to r*pe some women today!”, and so on.

With the courage all these women have and what they are going through, we just want someone to care. Someone to stand up for us, hear us, and stand with us. So, how can you show that you stand with women in this critical time and raise awareness? You can post a female in your life, either your mom, girlfriend, sister, or anyone that’s important to you on your Instagram with the hashtag “#IStandWithYou” “#JHSStandsWithYou” and write why they are important to you. Educating yourself is another way you can show your support. Calling out others when they make jokes aimed towards sexual assault victims would allow for the females around you to have a sense of trust in you that you have their back and understand them. It may seem small, but the smallest things can lead to big change, and together we can make a change.