“News You Can Use,” says our friendly neighborhood Vodkapundit, Steve Green, adding appropriately, “Oy:”
There are a lot of ways to address sexual assault on college campuses. Warning students to watch the facial expressions they make isn’t one of them.
Yet that’s what students at Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah, New Jersey, were faced with during an hourlong presentation on alcohol use and sexual assault that focused heavily on what women could do to avoid being assaulted, according to the Ramapo News.
The presentation included tips from the school’s Substance Abuse & Violence Prevention coordinator Cory Rosenkranz, who advised students on how to dress, how much to drink and how to use body language that would lessen the chances of assault.
The author of this piece, Matt Connolly, adds:
The presentation’s focus on what the victim should be doing rather than what the perpetrator shouldn’t be doing — committing acts of sexual assault — drew criticism from students, faculty and alumni.
In response, Steve writes, “So the solution isn’t to badger the overwhelming majority of men who are decent and good. The solution, as pictured above, is to be prepared for the few who are bad and evil and rapey.” The photo above his post illustrates how one can prepare for such an eventuality.
Steve’s post links to article at a Website called Mic.com, which states on its “About Us” page that “Mic’s approach to news is as unique as our generation. We’re founded on a simple idea: Young people deserve a news destination that offers quality coverage tailored to them.”
Which makes sense, because I came across another piece, a very old one written in slightly more archaic language, cautioning its readers on the importance of watching one’s facial expression in a totalitarian socialist environment:
At this moment he was dragged out of his reverie with a violent jerk. The girl at the next table had turned partly round and was looking at him. It was the girl with dark hair. She was looking at him in a sidelong way, but with curious intensity. The instant she caught his eye she looked away again.
The sweat started out on Winston’s backbone. A horrible pang of terror went through him. It was gone almost at once, but it left a sort of nagging uneasiness behind. Why was she watching him? Why did she keep following him about? Unfortunately he could not remember whether she had already been at the table when he arrived, or had come there afterwards. But yesterday, at any rate, during the Two Minutes Hate, she had sat immediately behind him when there was no apparent need to do so. Quite likely her real object had been to listen to him and make sure whether he was shouting loudly enough.
His earlier thought returned to him: probably she was not actually a member of the Thought Police, but then it was precisely the amateur spy who was the greatest danger of all. He did not know how long she had been looking at him, but perhaps for as much as five minutes, and it was possible that his features had not been perfectly under control. It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.
As Iowahawk tweeted a couple of months ago, “College: an oasis of totalitarianism in a desert of freedom.” The Ministry of Truth and Ramapo College couldn’t have said it better themselves.
Or find a college where there’s zero chance of rape, and the two-way telescreens are of a much more benign nature:
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