Taking Direct Action
USU's Dress and Humanity class isn't exactly the most well-known class on campus, and there are numerous reasons as to why students chose to enroll in this course. Some may have registered in this class because it fulfills the depth and humanities requirement. Others because a friend mentioned that you don't have a final exam at the end of the semester. Some perhaps enrolled because a course that talks about clothes can't be all that hard. Right?
Truth be told, Dress and Humanity is much more than a depth requirement that discusses clothing. Recently, students enrolled in Dress and Humanity discussed the prevalent issue of intimate assault by means of implicit bias. While this is a pretty packed statement, much can be learned on this topic by dissecting the terms. Intimate assault is fairly straightforward and refers to probably the first thing that popped into your mind: sexual assault and other illicit actions or behaviors. Implicit bias, however, is not a phrase used in our everyday vocabulary but is easy to understand. Implicit bias is prejudice or stereotypes in relation to a person's behaviors and decisions that most commonly occur on a subconscious level.
The million dollar question now is what do the two have to do with one another? Great question, and thanks for asking! When one hears about an incident of sexual assault on the news or wherever, immediate assumptions come to mind for many. Such assumptions might be what was the individual wearing? Where was he or she at when the incident occurred, and what time was it? Was the person drinking? From questions like these, it's clear to see that many believe the fault somehow lies with the victim as he or she should have or could have done more to prevent the incident from happening. However, now that we are aware that implicit bias plays are role in the development of aforementioned stereotypes, perhaps more direct actions can be taken to combat intimate assault and its derivatives
