Women on this campus are nervous, anxious, fearful and angry. While some women may not directly experience violence on a daily basis, they often live in fear of it. Living in fear has become second nature to most women because violence is so prevalent in our culture. This is not to say that men do not experience violence. We recognize that men are sometimes the victims of violence.
Women have to live with the awareness of their risk of violence throughout their entire lives.
Parents and loved ones have warned us from an early age that we must be aware of our safety. We have lived so long with this reality that it seems natural, and often we do not recognize how much it affects our lives on a daily basis. While surveys have indicated that most men do not take these safety precautions, men are affected negatively by the prevalence of violence against women. But violence against women affects men in other ways, too. For all the women who walk alone across campus at night, nervously aware of the man walking behind them, there is a man who is being viewed as a potential perpetrator.