Sexual Assault and the Millennials

Greetings Colleagues,

I'll make this short, but wanted to weigh in on my travels, and the anecdotal information that I'm getting from my interactions with students. As you know, this is the time of the year when I'm keynoting orientation programs across the country for four straight weeks. It gives me a real insight into the student mores of the class of 2013, as it does every year. While Millennials literature can forecast, and the Beloit list can look back, I always consider orientation my most accurate barometer for the year to come. It hasn't led me wrong yet. Most of my orientation programs have focused on sexual assault, with several addressing alcohol and bystander intervention instead as their primary focus. What can I relate so far -- three important initial impressions:

1. The class of '13 is slightly more alcohol naive than the class of '12. They're a little less experienced coming in, though only a little. They are about as well-informed on alcohol as previous classes, maybe slightly more so, but it is clear the high schools are still not giving them critical information and that colleges still need to fill that gap.

What are the implications? Depends on how quickly they acclimate to campus and begin to reflect the campuses alcohol mores, rather than those of their high school. Often, when the incoming class is inexperienced, it's bad for college administrators. Coming in with more experience often means savvier drinkers, and less fallout from first-time drunkfests. With a naive class like '13, it suggests to me higher risk when and if they do drink, as they have less experience with the effects of different types of alcohol, and how they will react.

2. About 6 years ago, there was a 2-3 year period in which it was not uncommon for young women to excuse themselves (sometimes running) from my sexual assault program when it triggered them. We beefed up counselors outside as a result, and that made for some valuable support structures. It happened practically every night. Then, for the last four years, I've watched powerless as sometimes a few or even a dozen women just sat through the presentation in tears. Every night. But, almost never left. Hopefully, they had someone to talk to, or sought help after the program, but there was enough emotional control that fleeing was rare. This year, I've had multiple women flee in almost every program.

What are the implications? I'd generalize and say this class has less emotional control than the classes over the last four years. We've been watching this erode, and dealing with flare-ups, conflict and other emotional control issues more and more, but it may come to a head with this class. It's all on the surface, for better or worse. Also, we need to again beef up the counselor presence outside in the halls, so there is an emotional safety net for these women as they go running out.

3. The audience is splitting along gender lines in the Drunk Sex program based on a case study. I have the audience vote as if they are a jury, and it has been 10-11 years since I saw gender-split audiences, and only then primarily when I was visiting campuses in the South. This year, after three weeks, only two juries out of 12 have split with men and women equally divided. All the others have voted with a clear majority of men siding with the male defendant in the case, and women voting with the female victim. I've never seen this before, and it is widespread, from CA to VT.

Implications: this class seems to have regressed in gender role assumptions and stereotyping, and based on their comments, possesses a rather 1950s sensibility of "men can't keep it in their pants, so women better cross their legs." A lot of that is coming from women, too. It will be fascinating to see what has caused such an interestingly narrow gender-role perspective that seems to affect this entire class from campus to campus. Perhaps we are reaping the message of the Girls Gone Wild generation, and it seems to me, this is clearly not for the better.

Just some preliminary thoughts from the road. I'll more comprehensively summarize my impressions at the end of the semester, after another 30 programs or so.

Have a great long weekend and happy holiday.

Regards,

Brett Sokolow