April 23, 2015

Page 1

THE JOHNSONIAN | THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2015 | MYTJNOW.COM NATIONAL DENIM DAY TJ OPINION

tj #DenimDay

Eric Hammett / The Johnsonian

Denim Day brings awareness of sexual assault and rape culture to Winthrop and the world Trey Stokes stokest@mytjnow.com The year is 1992. In Italy, an 18-year-old woman is raped by her 45-year-old driving instructor. He threatens her with death if she tells anyone. However, she gathers the strength to tell her parents and the police about the assault. The rapist is arrested and sent to jail. The story should have ended there — but the perpetrator appealed to the Italian Supreme Court, where his conviction was overturned. In a statement by the Chief Justice, he explained the dismissal of the case as follows: “because the victim wore very, very tight jeans, she had to help him remove them, and by removing the jeans it was no longer rape but consensual sex.” In protest, women (and men) around the world — including the Italian Parliament and the California Assembly — wore jeans to work immediately following the conviction. This grassroots protest made it to the offices of Peace Over Violence, a “non-profit, multi-cultural, feminist” organization based in Los Angeles, CA that aims for the elimination of sexual violence. They began the tradition of National Denim Day

in April 1999 — a tradition that continues to this day. Each year during the last week of April, supporters are encouraged to incorporate denim into their outfits as a statement against sexual violence and rape culture. It all culminates on Denim Day; in York Country, it is today, April 23. According to Safe Passage, a local shelter for victims of sexual violence, “wearing jeans on this day is an international symbol of protest against erroneous and destructive attitudes about sexual assault.” So, starting today, you can post pictures with the hashtag #DenimDay to bring awareness to this crucial issue. We at The Johnsonian will be taking part, and we encourage the entire Winthrop community to participate. Like many university campuses, Winthrop is facing a sexual assault epidemic — so serious, in fact, that senior criminology major Jordan Steele decided to devote her final semester at Winthrop to researching its prevalence on campus. Her results have been groundbreaking, to say the least; they show glaring discrepancies between claims given by both campus police and the Winthrop administration about our levels of sexual assault. “I just kept learning about my own personal friends being subjected to this kind of trauma and realized that there hadn’t really been anything done on it yet,” she said. “Someone needed to.” In addition, Steele has been victimized herself. Steele’s research was done by distributing paper questionnaires to a sample of Winthrop students. The surveys asked students if they or someone they know has ever been sexually assaulted. Out of 133 students, 35 reported that they or someone they know had been sexually assaulted — 26.3 percent. That’s more than 1 in 4 students at Winthrop University.

4see DENIM pg. 10

True cost of higher education Breaking down cost of college after graduation Raven Brown brownr@mytjnow.com Hard work and tears may be enough to get graduates through college, but the real payment for their degree comes after graduation. Many college students and recent graduates are

faced with the burden of their student loan debt hanging over them long after the four years they spent in school. “You’re still paying for college so many years after you graduate,” Blair McCraney said, a recent Winthrop graduate. “It’s like you get out of college, but you’re still thinking about college all of the time and how much it cost you.” The average undergraduate borrower from the class of 2012 took on $27,183 in student loan debt, according to Susannah Snider’s article “Avoid Turning Into a Scary Student Loan Stat” that was published on the U.S. News and World

mytjnow.com Serving Winthrop since 1923

theJohnsonian

Report website in July. “The student loan business is a big market, so often times students are great targets for student loan companies, because they know that you’re investing in your human capital, and provided that you successfully complete college you will be able to pay it back,” said Philip Gibson, an assistant professor of finance at Winthrop. Private companies or the government can fund the loans that are available to students and these loans can be subsidized or unsubsidized.

4see COLLEGE pg. 3

Index: News 3 | Science & Tech 5 | Sports 6 | Arts & Culture 8 | Opinion 10


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.