Uni suicide - tragedy but is this the only recourse for women that experience assault ?

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14060637/Oxford-University-student-20-killed-cancelled-female-friend-told-pals-felt-uncomfortable-sexual-encounter.hotlink

Superficially this is a tragedy and the sites is was the major factor for that led to it. However given the extremely low probability of criminal conviction of the university acting from a disciplinary point of view are women justified in using ostracism as the only till they have left for justice and as a warning to others that may consider assault a crime where there are in reality limited chance of consequence?

The woman concerned comes across as psychologically cruel and the coroner warns against 'cancel culture' but there seems more to this and perhaps the woman concerned was justified in talking to their friendship group at the very least as warning to other woemn?

Is this the social equivalent of a lunch mob with no proven guilt or the actions of a woman who knew there is typically no justice from authorities in such cases?

Focussing on what happened between this man and a woman is pointless, as what actually happened isn't in the public arena, so it's just speculation.

Falling out with your friend group is something that happens to lots of people all the time, it just didn't used to be called 'cancelling'. We see it all the time on here, where people are encouraged to cut off friends for various undesirable behaviour.

For this young man to suicide there was probably something going on with his mental health - it won't have been solely the friendship issues.

Why would you make that assumption?

You have no idea what happened.

if we are making assumptions I would assume that the students wanted to have this moral superiority, saw things in black and white as we all do at that age and the student who died was a victim of this condemnation by the mob.

We have the police and courts for this reason.

OP, I am deeply ‘uncomfortable’ with your framing this as a ‘narrative’ bolstered by speculation, supposition, seeking to name and blame etc.

Have a theoretical discussion about women’s recourse to support in different circumstances but please stop the speculation and inferences around a real case.

This is a tragedy, there is no good outcome now whatever happened, for him, his family or those that live with what happened.

It depends what you mean. Many are a lot better than they used to be, it’s very institution dependent. Some have a long way to go.

But that doesn’t change the fundamental point that it’s better to report than try to deal with it yourself as that can go very wrong.

Universities do not have a duty of care towards students.

Where did anyone say you couldn't share your experience or that you had to stay friends with everyone?

What happened to this person was a coordinated effort of physical attacks, social ostracism and bullying based off a report of someone feeling uncomfortable.

You can absolutely draw a line between differing opinions/shifts in friendship groups and bullying. Institutions and workplaces do it all the time, that's why there are HR departments.

Conviction rates for rape and other sexual assaults are extremely low, the process is horrendously slow and punishing for any woman that tries to pursue a case.

The anecdotal reports of women reporting to educational establishments are not encouraging.

What other recourse do women have?

Blaming someone for someone else's suicide is the worst kind of abusive bullying and does not help this poor young man's family at all.

The mail have been unbelievably reckless, breaking all guidelines, with this story.

Do PP think being subject to an official police investigation into an alleged sexual offence would have been a better outcome for this young man than his friends not speaking to him? That he would have found this less stressful?

She is NOT to blame for him taking his life. That is an awful thing to say. We have no idea what happened between them.

He took his life the day after his mates had a chat with him saying they needed space.

It sounds like they were all mates too - the majority of my mates at uni were blokes. So mutual friends. We don't know her motives.

If she had gone to the police about it the same tragic outcome may well have occurred.

DD is a 1st year at Uni
Every student has to attend a seminar on Consent in the first semester, hers is tomorrow.
She is outraged that she has to give up her free time due to " a few rapey men"

There's a lot of people saying that "she should have sought pastoral support from the university" but few/none saying that he should have.

Why is it on the female to seek help for trauma and not a male?

Stat in the news today saying that only 1 in 10 sexual assault survivors would report it again. Shocking.

www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/12/rape-sexual-assault-survivors-report-crime-england-wales-survey

Where did anyone say you couldn't share your experience or that you had to stay friends with everyone?

Instead she chose to individually tell a variety of people that he made her feel “uncomfortable” to turn everyone against him. It was malicious and attention seeking.

A college like Corpus Christi is a very small, close community. Many undergraduates will know virtually all the members of the JCR; live with them, eat with them, share a house or a corridor/staircase with them, share library facilities. Sports and social activities and dating pool might also be fairly confined to within this small group of your peers.

Imagine if after a drunken encounter, you were gossiped about and ostracised by your entire community. To leave is basically unthinkable as your entire existence was about being successful enough to get there in the first place. And your whole future appears to hang on you staying. But it’s awful. There’s no escape from it, you can’t see a way out or through.

I can understand why you might feel you had done something so heinous your life was not worth living.

The lad needed to be able to turn to someone, a mentor or pastoral support or personal tutor. I can absolutely understand why his shame prevented him from seeking that help.

It is awful.

The girl may have been justified in her actions trying to whip up a social frenzy against him and freeze him out. But I doubt he deserved death. And it was foreseeable that her actions could drive him to that point, because she would have known what it would be like to live every day with the weight of the misery of thinking everyone hated you.

So I’m afraid I do blame her. And I suspect, deep down, she will forever blame herself.

It all sounds very Lord of the Flies. "Groups" and "membership" and rules and people who make them. That is NOT friendship. It's organised arseholery.

Having worked with victims of sexual violence (overwhelmingly women) I think many many of them would disagree.

The police are overstretched and under resourced I know but the process is often not very quick, easy or just. Victims can often be re traumatised by the system and most get no justice.

There is no evidence that a police investigation would have made this young man feel any less ostracised or guilty.

It is not that common that others within a social circle take such a hard stance on sexual incidents, which makes me wonder what happened and what was said as sadly I don’t know too many men who would cut out a friend because a girl said he made her uncomfortable. Sad but true.

Not true. The DfE states:

Higher education providers do have a general duty of care to deliver educational and pastoral services to the standard of an ordinarily competent institution and, in carrying out these services, they are expected to act reasonably to protect the health, safety and welfare of their students. This can be summed up as providers owing a duty of care to not cause harm to their students through the university’s own actions.

There is debate around how far the duty of care extends, and the nature of obligations to tend to students mental health.

I get that friends have always fallen out but I'm sure the decision to cut off friends used to be more individual. I'm really not liking this groupthink trend where people are expected to pick sides or risk being ostracized themselves.

We have no idea what the nature of the interaction was. And at least it would have been procedurally correct.

Traditionally ostracism is one of the worst penalties a society metes out, because it is so stressful. And we are unaware - admittedly from a source which is often biased - of any attempt to get both sides of the story, which the police would make

We don’t know what happened though.

Imagine he raped her; now read your post through that lens. She has to live in a small community with this person and feels shame and anger and fear. She may not feel able to go to the police (if the question is about consent it very rapidly becomes he said/she said) or she’s in shock after a traumatic event. She confides in friends and it becomes bigger than her and without her asking it to becomes a frenzy.

Where is the evidence she wanted to ostracise him? Or that she sought to make him miserable? Why is she responsible for his actions but he isn’t responsible for his own?

She told her friends what happened and they decided that for them this was unacceptable behaviour from him. What should she had done? Just kept it to herself? Reported it so that even more people find out what he has done? She kept it fairly low-key, but something happened to her that night and it's not fair to think that she should have just removed herself from her group of friends and not mention it to anyone because they have the same friends. She really couldn't win in this situation, and she didn't even create it.

He could have sought help for himself .
Signposting all students to support is what is needed
You cannot police what students do
But you can make it clear signs posters etc..if you feel suicidal stop call this number ...

Later that evening, B spoke separately with C and E, close friends of Alexander, explaining her feelings about the events of 11 January.

I read that as she approached them. We’ll probably never know