By: Rozime Lindsey
The former vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, once said, “We must, and we can change the culture of sexual assault”. One would think that in today’s climate, we should be able to fight campus rape, but unbeknownst to many, it often goes unnoticed and unreported. However, Lady Gaga is able to accurately capture the ignorance in regards to how sexual assault cases are recognized on college campuses with her song, Til it Happens to you. This song, produced almost five years ago, has relevance today because it brings sensitivity and accuracy in streamlining protests such as the Metoo movement—which has created a safe space for sexual assault victims to share their stories and spread awareness.
However, there is so much attention gravitated toward the Metoo movement, that there’s a lack of acknowledgment for the rape cases involving college students. There are too many women and men on college campuses that are victims of sexual assault constantly. Sexual violence on campus has become pervasive, with records showing 11.2% of all students experiencing rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence, or incapacitation. Lady Gaga’s, Til it Happens to you helps bring light to the dangerous growing number of sexual assault cases on college campuses — by illustrating 3 reasons why culture must change to save college students from traveling the dark journey of these violent sexual attacks alone.
- Belatedness
Lady Gaga’s lyrics depict the social environment in colleges as a rapid lonely system, where most students do not have time to digest what has happened to them nor do they have the appropriate support from their respective universities. The lyrics, “You tell me it gets better, better with time.” reflects the difficult way victims deal with the aftermath of their assault. A problem with allegations, is that people ignorantly ask, why does the victim take so long to tell someone about their assault? We see that through the victims’ digression, nothing really gets better with time. Throughout the song, the lyrics reflect a certain type of trauma called Belatedness. This trauma is explained by theorist, Cathy Caruth, which indicates the event being too devastating to create anxiety at the moment, so as a survival strategy the survivors thoughtfully create the anxiety. Considering an appropriate response was not created properly in the moment, it repeats constantly in the survivor’s nightmares and emotes fear as if to prepare themselves for the event that already happened. I call this Belatedness the “survival kit” because at first, it is the emergency blanket that soon expires when trauma sets in.
- Not just a crime of men against women
Although Till it happens to you, shows the delayed suffering of college students, it fails to recognize the idea that sexual assault can happen to men. Lady Gaga sets the whole music video in black and white, allowing us to see that sexual assault has the ability to happen to anyone by blurring the lines of color; but she is unsuccessful at going through with this idea, as all of the victims who are being attacked are all women being violated by men.
Lady Gaga isn’t the only one who disregards these masculine victims for this is a misconception throughout our culture that sexual assault doesn’t happen to men. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network(RAINN), men and boys that are from the ages of 18-24 in College are five times more likely to be victims of rape and sexual assault than those are not in college. RAINN statics also show that “1 out of every 10 rape victims are men.” This wide range of statics shows us that there are masculine victims of rape and sexual assault around us, especially college men, that should be acknowledged and showcase just as much as women. Although Til it Happens to you, doesn’t give an outlet to College men, it does enlighten our ignorance about sexual assault cases as a whole and how they are often brushed under the rug at college campuses.
- Departure of Knowing
The music video shows that although college is supposed to be a place to fulfill your dreams and follow your goals, it can also be a place of pain and fear of the unknown, which are feelings that stem from being a victim of sexual assault. The agony gets in the way of the discovery and reinvention that is unlikely to happen with this traumatic experience. In Til it happens to you, the lyrics towards the end says, “Til it happens to you, you won’t know, It won’t be real (how could you know?), No it won’t be real (how could you know?), Won’t know how I feel.” These lyrics refer to reaching out for support, but not receiving the correct form of help as you’re having trouble depicting what happened to you. This type of trauma is called the Departure of Knowing, which also comes from theorist, Cathy Caruth. This trauma points out that survivors can not comprehend this experience in the same way that they might understand other experiences that do not have a traumatic effect. With that being said, the survivor must, in a way, change their mindset in order to understand their new circumstances from a different perspective. I look at the bold imagery in the music video where we have these young women writing statements on their arms. Although these are statements, they act as questions to guide them to understand that, they are really the victim, although they didn’t ask to be.
Something-to-be-done
Reducing the number of campus rape comes with the acknowledgment that it happens all the time as Lady Gaga tried to tell us five years ago. I have done some research to see what colleges are doing currently to educate their students. I’ve found that they’ve set up “prevention programs.” One of these programs is starting up at Michigan State University to provide a texting option to victims. This texting feature would allow students to have access to the support and resources they deserve.
Unfortunately, this texting option is only available in Michigan. I believe that this culture of ignorance in regards to college rape cases can be changed by having a universal code of protecting victims. It is important for every college is jump on this wagon so that these services can be offered to victims. Another prevention program that needs to be is a grant program that will give funds to college to give sexual assault support resources to students. Colleges do not prioritize this attack and it shows through the increasing number of sexual assaults every year.
Lady Gaga influences us through her graphic lyrics and her vivid music video that we need to help out the many victims of sexual assault. She shows us to not forget about some of the most vulnerable victims, like college students, but to give them resources we all would need to get better with support, not with time. The fact of the matter is, do you really want to wait till it happens to you?
Haunted Histories: Special Issue December 2019 