‘Yes’ Is Better Than ‘No’

Bennett Brady

PHI/WGS 297

November 8, 2016

Blog Post #4

‘Yes’ Is Better Than ‘No’

            In their op-ed piece “’Yes’ Is Better Than ‘No’” Michael Kimmel and Gloria Steinem discuss consensual sex on campus, and the recent passage of Senate Bill 967 in California. The article begins by describing a few other typical crimes, and how consent works in them. For example, if your drunk asleep in your house, and someone breaks in and steals all of your belongings that’s a crime. The person who committed this crime will probably go to jail however, when a girl is drunk at a party in college and a guy takes advantage of her and invades her body without her consent the guy typically gets away with it. Recently a bill that was passed in California would make it the first state to embrace the “yes means yes” law. Until this bill it has always been assumed that unless someone says “no” consent is applied. This has allowed for a lot of sexual assaults to take place because there is such a big question of what is consent, and what isn’t. This bill makes it clear that only “yes” means consent, and even if she didn’t say no that doesn’t mean yes.

I think that this bill will be a great start to brining awareness to the huge issue of sexual assault on college campuses. I think this bill will be very helpful in understanding when sex is consensual, and when it is not. Very often people are confused on when it is ok and when it isn’t but I think that bill will clear some of that up for people. When a woman reports her sexual assault she is often asked if she said no or if she did everything in her power to stop it from happening, and if she says no she is typically told that it wasn’t sexual assault. However, for example as we saw in The Hunting Ground when a woman is being assaulted she usually freezes, and is unable to say no or fight back because she is in fear for her life and so afraid. Even though in the article it says that this law has been in Canada for many years, and the reporting’s of sexual assaults there have not gone up I think this bill will encourage more woman to come forward with their sexual assaults, and hopefully bring more justice for them to now that what Yes is has been clearly defined for people.