Colorado’s female students are up-in-arms over rape whistles and “lie back and take it” suggestions from a state law maker.

The College Fix contributor Aslinn Scott is from the University of Colorado – Boulder, and she has interviewed fellow female students from several schools around the state to gauge their response to these crime prevention tips.

In the span of two weeks in Colorado, a series of rape prevention advice from campus officials and a Democrat state lawmaker has prompted outrage and concern across the nation – as well as among some female colleges students to which the suggestions were directed, who called the ideas insulting, ineffective and ludicrous.

The rape prevention tips published by the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs advised women to deter attackers by telling them they have a disease, or are menstruating, or are about to vomit or urinate.

Meanwhile, as the Colorado House conducted hearings on a controversial gun control bill that would, if approved, make the state’s colleges gun-free zones, Democrat Rep. Joe Salazar said on women’s personal safety on campus: “It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at.”

Although the university has since taken down the tips and campus officials and Salazar has apologized, the notions have sparked outrage. Several female college students, in interviews with The College Fix, said they’re insulted and angry.

Colorado School of Mines graduate student Margaret Albert, 24, said Salazar is out of touch with the realities women face.

“His speech demonstrated a severe lack of understanding of what it is like to be a young woman on a college campus today,” she said.

She added women have a Constitutional right to defend themselves.

“If I as a woman am guaranteed the right to my body and the decision-making over any extension of my body, then why is my intuition regarding a threat to my body not trusted,” she said. “This debate is not about gun safety; it is about my right to choose how I protect myself.”

Cassandra Enomoto, 28, a senior at CU Colorado Springs, said the suggestions broached on rape prevention in her state recently degrade the victim and do not empower women.

“Do you think a rape whistle is going to help me?” she said. “That’s ludicrous.”

In fact, Enomoto said she is one of the few students who possess a concealed carry permit on her campus, and her peers are often surprised to learn this and immediately tense up. But she said she reassures them by explaining she took a lengthy gun safety class and “learned to use it properly and safely.”


 
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