1. Tackling Rape Culture on Campus: Evaluation of an Online Sexual Consent Workshop
Rebecca Smith

2. Trigger warning
This presentation will discuss attitudes towards rape and as such may be triggering for some people.

3. Inspired by a student project (with Ivy Grey) Predictors of rape myth acceptance (RMA)
What are rape myths? Burt (1991) Rape myths are stereotypes and false beliefs about rape, rapists and rape victims ‘real rape’ as an attack from a stranger with a weapon as opposed to far more common acquaintance rape. These myths enforce sex role stereotypes and support the patriarchy. They make it harder for survivors to come forward Victim blaming Perpetrators exonerated Women’s behaviour is restricted (Rozee, Bateman and Gilmore, 1991) Contribute to rape culture

4. Preliminary analysis
Minimum
Maximum
Mean SD
reliability
Overall RMA 1
3.81
1.77
.62
.92
She asked for it
4.00
1.75
.80
.85
He didn’t mean it
1.97
.78
.81
It wasn’t rape
3.20
1.42
.58
.79
She lied
4.75
.86
No difference between male and female participants overall or on any of the subscales.
The only subscale approaching sig sex difference was ‘not rape and females scored more highly

5. Findings
Social Dominance and attitudes towards feminism significantly predicted overall rape myth acceptance , (F(2, 120)= 22.81, p<0.01, adjusted R²=.26, (SDO β = .34, FEM β = -.30) Both predictor variables were significant for each subscale too.
Only do subscales if time

6. Online Sexual Consent Workshop

7. Estimated prevalence
Women between the ages of and female full time students are the group most likely to be the target of a sexual offence, (Universities UK Taskforce, 2016). One in five women between the ages of experience sexual assault, (rape crisis England and Wales) 12, 000 men are raped in the UK each year (Survivors UK)

8. Academic impact of sexual assault
Jordon, Combs and Smith (2014), in the US 24% of female students experience a rape or sexual assault in their first semester, a further 20% in their second. GPA lower for those students than those without an assault experience The more serious the assault the worse the academic performance

9. UK Higher education
Universities Minister asked Universities UK (UUK) to set up a taskforce to look at sexual violence, sexual harassment and hate crime. Published recommendations and a directory of case studies Encourage Universities to share good practice Includes university policy for reporting assault, staff training, bystander intervention and consent training Key studies from the NUS Hidden Marks (2010) That’s what she said (2013)

10. Online sexual consent workshops
Why online? Previous research shows big facilitator effects on face to face workshops (see Vladitiu et al 2011 for a review) Practical issues: Flexible for students, not a strain on staff Ethics: it is easier to withdraw anonymously so more appropriate for survivors.

11. Promoting a culture of consent online
5 short panopto clips on a moodle course Content: Exploring consent vs rape culture (I heart consent, NUS) Addressing rape myths (I heart consent, plus Burt 1981) Case studies (University of Bristol) Quiz (statistics on prevalence) Where to get support and how to report a crime

12. Participants
Undergraduates and masters students from PSWC (social work, psychology and health programmes) Ethics Needed to consider survivors and potential for upset. The training was rolled out gradually as the University has limited support

13. Measures
Questionnaire 1 Social dominance orientation Benevolent and aversive sexism Attitudes towards the feminist movement Rape myth acceptance Questionnaire 2 Evaluation of consent workshop

14. Results
How important do you feel the issue of attitudes toward rape is?

15. How useful was the online sexual consent workshop?

16. How worthwhile…?

17. How important that the University runs sexual consent workshops?

18. Participants comments
“Rape myths was very powerful, more examples of this should be used as people may relate to some of the myths as they have said them themselves.” Make mandatory for all students to complete. really insightful Loved the workshop, should be compulsory for all students.

19. “I think it was a very useful workshop that makes issues of consent clear and easy to understand. Many people seem confused about what constitutes sexual assault and education around this subject should be mandatory.” “I think it's a great idea, and happy that this initiative is being taken within the uni, especially because the uni setting (sometimes) has a way of presenting relevant situations”

20. Less Positive
“On the positive note, it was to the point and informative. However, I believe that this workshop might successfully target courses that are mainly taken by the younger generation and not related to health care, as social work, nursing and psychology should already be well aware of the issue. I found it difficult to fill the questionnaire out, as the questions are confusing, way too vague, can be interpreted to different ways and there is no option to explain answers. I am also positive that due to this issue there is no valid data will be collected”.. “Didn’t really grasp the purpose of it”

21. Comparing the views of those who complete the training with those who did not
Comparing 61 participants post training rape myth acceptance scores with 23 participants who did not take part in the online workshop revealed a significant effect, t(61)= 3.19, p<0.01.
Mean
No training
2.24
Full training
1.68

22. Discussion
Very good signs so far Limited to female dominant programmes Extending training across the University? refine quality of recordings and include male voiced clips Consider trigger warnings more carefully (staff and students) Consider collaborating with student union Consider expanding bystander intervention element