Since I have already explained how my week was in respects to my health aspect, I’ll just jump right into the chapter. This is a hard chapter to read due to the heavy topics. Violence is something that I think about everyday in respect to keeping myself and my loved ones safe. When it comes to my friends and I going out, I try especially hard to keep my eyes on everyone so that we all stay safe. When looking at the statistics for all these types of abuse and rape it makes me sick. “Over 23% of undergraduate women have been sexually assaulted one or more times during their undergraduate years” (Donatelle, 2019, p.314). This is far too many young women to be assaulted and this only includes those who report it. It is a sad reality to think that walking through campus, 1/4 of the girls you pass have been sexually assaulted. I think it would be interesting to see a statistic on how many men have sexually assaulted women.
Another scary statistic that I found in the book is that “1 in 370 is the lifetime odds of dying in an assault by a firearm”(Donatelle, 2019, p.310). This does not sound like a lot until you realize that the odds of dying in the passenger seat of a car crash is 1 in 647. I would have thought that car crash deaths are more likely than death by firearm, but I live in a place where it is not common for someone to carry a weapon. I think this statistic is sad because it it more likely for you to die in an act of violence from another person than your chances of an accidental death via car crash.
Donatelle explains that the majority of vehicle crashes are because of factors that are within the drivers control. Some examples of this are distracted driving, such as texting and impaired driving, such as driving drunk. These both lead to a lot of car crashes and risk the safety on the road, but the main killer on the road is not wearing your seatbelt. “forty-nine percent of all people killed in MCVs in 2014 were not wearing seatbelts at the time”(Donatelle, 2019, p. 322). I find it interesting that even with the new cars that beep at you until you buckle up, people try so hard to do just the opposite. It takes two seconds to put on and take off your seatbelt, so I am unsure of what the excuse for not wearing one is. If it is uncomfortable, they sell seatbelt covers to help make it more comfortable, so there really is no excuse except for people just being stubborn, but it is a simple change that they can make to help possibly save your life.
Aryana's Blog 