Consent Week is, as the name implies, a weeklong event that will be taking place starting Monday, February 3rd. This event is centered around defining consent and creating a safe environment for students to share their thoughts and experiences on touchy subjects regarding sexual assault and harassment. The project is led by Sarah Garduno, JLHS Press Commissioner.
Consent week involves a series of activities that will take place during the week, some of which include a school-wide assembly on Monday and a panel that will be taking place at the end of the week to discuss consent and sexual harassment. The project began when a student submitted an essay, detailing the sexual harassment they had experienced and seen on campus.
“They submitted it to one of the ASB officers, and so that led us to go towards, well, how can we make people more aware of all these things that are happening and we thought consent week was a kind of good way to start incorporating that,” said Junior Emily Kilbride, a JLHS press commissioner.
Senior Cindy Nguyen, an officer supporting Garduno for the project, is in favor of bringing a subject that usually is ignored into the open.
“I think it’s a good thing to talk about and make it normalized to talk about such touchy subjects at school,” Nguyen said.
A point of emphasis for the organizers is the topic of how the concept of consent differs for every person. Awareness should be brought to it in order to create a safer environment for students. More often than not, sexual assault and harassment goes unreported. When it does get reported, the victims are often blamed for it happening in the first place, resulting in fewer and fewer people reporting their experiences for fear of being ostracized.
Consent week wants to address this issue (victim-blaming) among others, including what people can do to support survivors or stop something they see happening. All things considered, consent week sounds like it will be incredibly beneficial to the student body, especially in today’s social environment.
