Volume 128 Issue 18
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SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS
SITTING STRONG
Strong Hall protest aims to keep current campus policies in the spotlight
PAIGE STINGLEY
@paigestinglev
Connor Bowman was one of two men sitting among a growing crowd of women on the lawn of Strong Hall on Tuesday afternoon. He held a sign that read, "Parking Violation = $$, RAPE = ...?" Women were there to protest sexual assault policies, and Bowman was right there alongside them to show his support.
"I think the gender gap speaks to a larger issue here," Bowman said. "Maybe it's a sign that there should be an effort to change that about our culture."
Bowman has noticed that many sexual assault awareness training sessions focus on steps women can take to avoid putting themselves in those situations. However, he noted, people don't often take into consideration the man's actions and how we should address them.
"Everyone always says that women shouldn't let themselves get drunk enough to put themselves in that situation, which is true," Bowman said. "But at the same
time, they should be able to feel safe no matter what."
Bowman and several other students voiced their opinions at the Sit Down to Stand Up protest Tuesday afternoon. Dozens of supporters sat on the lawn of Strong Hall holding signs that read, "Our bodies are not learning experiences for rapists" and "Only yes means yes," among several others.
Zoe Fincher, a sophomore from Lawrence, organized the protest. After she made the event on Facebook, Hobbes Entrikin, a member of September Siblings, messaged her and asked if September Siblings could join her cause.
Fincher wasn't shocked by the article published by the Huffington Post or by the scrutiny the University has been under in the past two weeks. She said she hopes this protest will combine with other similar protests across the country to create a national discussion. She said her main goal in organizing the protest was to spread the word and gain media attention.
"KU doesn't want the attention, but it's what we need if we are going to fix this," Fincher said.
Fincher specifically planned the protest a couple weeks after the article came out so people wouldn't forget it after a couple of days and move on.
"If we stop talking about it, then it will just get pushed back under the rug and nothing will get fixed."
ZOE FINCHER Sophomore from Lawrence
"If we stop talking about it, then it will just get pushed back under the rug and nothing will get fixed," Fincher said.
Both students and alumni were present at the protest. Among the crowd were CJ Brune and Christine Smith, two women who were part of February Sisters, a women's rights group on campus in the '70s. Brune and Smith were both part of a similar protest in February 1972 when they were fighting for affirmative action and a daycare at the University.
"It's been a problem for years," Brune said. "And the worst part was that they made the woman feel like the perpetrator, like it was her fault."
"When we were in college, they would essentially just tell girls just to 'relax and enjoy it', and apparently that's still their attitude," Smith said.
Neither of them are surprised by the problems.
The September Siblings gave a list of demands to the Institutional Opportunity and Access and the University they would like to see the administration adhere to. They requested the demands be met by spring 2015, but have yet to hear from administration.
Last week Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little formed a sexual assault task force that will review current policies and practices, and
provide recommendations on how they can be improved. Since this announcement, no recognizable changes have been made.
Emma Halling, former interim student body president, showed her support at the protest. The last contact with IOA or the University she had was almost two weeks ago. She said she is concerned the task force was created just to pacify the people so scrutiny will go away and no changes will be made.
"They're aware that the spotlight is on them," Halling said. "The fact that this is occurring after the task force was created shows that more
needs to be done."
Until those demands are met, students like Fincher and members of the September Siblings will continue to rally support and raise awareness on campus. By using hashtags like #AGreatPlaceToBeUnsafe and #dontexploreku, they hope to convince the University to change its policies.
"KU has a great opportunity to become a national leader from all of this," Bowman said. "The students recognize that there's a problem, and they should be mad. But the overall message is a positive one."
Edited by Casey Hutchins
SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS WEEK EVENTS TODAY:
Multiple Masculinities: A Cross-Cultural Conversation with Men at KU
- The panel discussion will focus on how masculinity is defined in various cultures and communities, how masculinity is portrayed in the media, what role masculinity plays in sexual assault and how perception of masculinity affects male survivors.
- It will be held at 7 p.m. in the Sabatini Multicultural Center classroom. Distribution of consent T-shirts sponsored by IOA.
- Shirts will be handed out on Wescoe Beach and at the Union as part of a new Consent Campaign. Facts about sexual assault will also be available.
Study: Facebook accurately reveals personality
MCKENNA HARFORD
@McKennaHartford
@McKennaHarford
"I see myself as someone who..." began the survey that was handed out to 100 people, including 30 KU students, who participated in a study that examined personality and personality perception through Facebook profiles.
A study conducted by Jeffrey Hall, associate professor of communication studies, doctoral candidate Natalie Pennington and Allyn Lueders, who received her doctorate at the University, found that for the most part, Facebook profiles accurately portrayed the person's character to those who were perceiving them.
"The argument was that when you are composing your Facebook profile, it is indicative of your personality because you write your status updates, you select your friends, you put up the pictures, and all of those behaviors are very active," Hall said.
The study was done in three components.
First, 100 Facebook users, based on the demographics of Facebook users at the time, offered their profiles for analysis according to 55 profile cues, such as positive status updates and attractiveness of the profile picture. The users also took a personality survey that looked at five characteristics: openness, extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness.
"The traits that were most known by strangers were also the traits that had the most characteristics on the profile," Hall said. "Extraversion is the easiest trait to see and the hardest to see on a page is neuroticism."
In the second stage, 35 paid students at the University looked at the Facebook profiles and then answered the same survey about the person based on their profile.
In the third part of the study, these results were used to examine which personality traits are portrayed to others through social media and how accurate their perception is.
"There are all these things that are true about a person based on their page, and then we have everything they reported about themselves and everything the observers found," Pennington said. "When we have a match, then we can say with some degree of certainty that when a stranger looks at your page, that [that trait] is what they will see."
... it is indicative of your personality because you write your status updates, you select your friends, you put up the pictures, and all of those behaviors are very active."
However, this information could be distorted with recent changes to Facebook.
"Essentially, Facebook is picking the most important
JEFFREY HALL Associate professor of communication studies
“[My friends] tend to post a lot of things that reflect their personalities, but you can be very vague when it comes to social media,” Miller said.
Jamee Miller, a junior from Pittsburg studying applied behavioral science, said social media profiles don't always represent someone's personality.
CRYPTOQUIPS 6
OPINION 4
Pennington said although the Facebook algorithm makes it harder to identify personality traits correctly,it can't hide them completely.
events and then shows them to you, so that affects the perception process," Hall said. "Our study shows that the very important cues are no longer obvious."
"When people go online, we tend to make active choices about what we share and how we share it, so I'm managing your impression of me," Pennington said. "Even though I make those active choices, it doesn't hide my personality; it really highlights it, even if I don't realize it."
CLASSIFIEDS 7
CROSSWORD 6
TARA BRYANT/KANSAN
Natalie Pennington, a doctoral candidate at the University, has conducted research on personality and personality perception through Facebook profiles.
— Edited by Alyssa Scott
SPORTS 8
SUDOKU 6
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2014 The University Daily Kansan
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