Thursday, March 28Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

Let’s Reconsider Consent

The ‘I Heart Consent’ campaign was a good idea but it was run in a way that I can only describe as dreadful. It was a campaign directed at the male community, yet for the most part it failed to engage men; it was a campaign interested in excluding men, or at least that’s the impression given. This campaign should have separated itself from the nasty face of feminism, which would have resulted in less time preaching that women are fundamentally different to men (which of course is false) and it would have turned attention to the real cause – consent!

Men are placed in uncomfortable positions more often than is apparent and it would only be false to claim that only men go out ‘on the pull’; I for one have witnessed many girls with the intention to ‘pull’. This is of course a two way street so it is wholly absurd that the campaign mostly excludes and blames men. The nasty side of feminism should stop seeing themselves and their fellow women as victims; I cannot name one man who is out to oppress them. Men too fall victim to the lack of consent; men get raped, men become too drunk to consent and men often fall victim to peer pressure which I would argue negates consent.

The women of Royal Holloway can become leaders of tomorrow. Our past has shown that women can become Prime Minister, they can become business leaders, they can now even become Bishops within the Church of England if they so wish. If women assert the belief that they are disadvantaged, inferior victims, they will live a disadvantaged life because no one will step aside and surrender their chances of success for someone else.

Women, just like men, have to make sacrifices. Life is about choices and unfortunately we can only make the one choice; we cannot have the best of both worlds. We are all victims, regardless of our race, ethnicity, age and gender. We are victims on the grounds of simple fact that we’re human, so let’s take a humanistic rather than a feminist stance towards consent.