One of the statistics is that over the next year, over 100,000 women will be sexually assaulted on U.S. You might be aware that campus rape is a problem, but the numbers offered up by The Hunting Ground are startling. Last September, President Barack Obama announced his " It's On Us" campaign, a program that strives to put an end to sexual assaults on campus, and Rolling Stone's controversial story on an alleged rape at the University of Virginia dropped last November. It's comes at a time when this topic is a hot-button issue. Young men need to know what constitutes rape and sexual assault so they can avoid committing it, as well as recognize if it has or is about to be committed by someone else so they can either stop it or notify the proper authorities, whether it's the police, campus security, or a counselor.As heart-wrenching and infuriating it is to watch The Hunting Ground, a chilling exposé on campus rape culture, it's an important and very necessary one. But more importantly, young men need to learn that ending rape ultimately starts with them, since there would be no rape if there were no rapists (who are almost always male), regardless of what a woman wears or how much she has to drink. Young women need to be aware of the dangers they face on college campuses so they can take the proper precautions to avoid them, which is not to say that any woman is to blame for being assaulted if she doesn't - warning someone to be vigilant and wary in a potentially dangerous situation is simply good advice, like warning someone not to wander into a crime-ridden part of town late at night. That's why The Hunting Ground should be required viewing for all college students, both male and female, and especially freshmen. In business, the perception that you're doing something good is often as effective (and definitely cheaper) as actually doing something good, and underreporting/ignoring/quashing claims of sexual assault produces the same desirably low numbers as creating an environment where sexual assault isn't tolerated by both school administration and students. Colleges are big business, and tuition and donation dollars will stop flowing if a school gets a reputation for sexual assault, or if assault accusations against a star athlete threatens a winning season, as was the case with former Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston, whose accuser is featured in The Hunting Ground. And for those wondering what possible motive a school could have for sweeping sexual assault cases under the rug, one need only look to that familiar root of all evil: money. As The Hunting Ground shows, the main ways schools send this message is by blaming victims for their own assaults while attackers - even confessed ones - are given little or no punishment.
#Watch the hunting ground documentary how to#
Using only laptops, smartphones, and strength found in each other, the pair begin their own impromptu investigation into campus sexual assault, contacting victims across the country, gathering information, and visiting campuses until they eventually crack the code of how to hold schools accountable through Title IX lawsuits, which claim that schools that fail to crack down on sexual assaults are effectively discriminating against women, with the schools risking losing their federal funding.Īs I learned, rape culture isn't only people who think it's okay to rape - it's a climate and system that, in overt and tacit ways, tells rapists that they're right. Clark and Andrea Pino are two students who contacted each other and formed a tight friendship after learning that they had both been raped while attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Thankfully, The Hunting Ground avoids this by weaving an inspiring thread of homespun activism throughout the film.
Many documentaries about institutional, systemic injustices are inescapably grim and seemingly hopeless until the end, where a few awkwardly upbeat minutes try to convince you not to leave the theater and immediately find a pit to fling yourself into.