Female students are more susceptible to sexual assaults in the first 12 weeks of the fall semester. This period of time is called the “Red Zone.”

Women and men have banded together to start a campaign in the hopes of changing this trend.

Jeannie Ludlow, the coordinator of women’s studies, said although freshman women are most at risk, efforts to change this statistic need to be targeted to men.

“I would want to be talking to the junior and senior guys,” Ludlow said. “Because they are the ones who capitalize on this.”

Ludlow said not every male student on campus is to blame; most of them are not doing anything wrong.

“The thing we have to change is the mindset of some men that these young women are fair game for them,” Ludlow said. “We shouldn’t have to say anything to the women, because they should be able to go out and have fun.”

These women are not to blame; they are in a new place, meeting new friends who want to go out and they want to have fun, Ludlow said.

“What I wish for all of us, is that we had strong sense of self, and strong sense of self-worth,” Ludlow said. “So that we believed in our own ability to say yes to sex and our right to say no to sex.”

She said she believes that society does not raise girls to have such feelings. She said girls are taught to say no to sex, but not to say yes to sex when they want it.

Changing the culture will help women be empowered so sex can be a safe and enjoyable experience.

Ludlow said she has about one student a month come to talk to her about sexual assault, which does not necessarily mean more rape cases are happening, but more people are wanting to talk about it.

Sexual Assault Counseling Information Service offers group and individual counseling and different informational throughout the year.

Ludlow is on the committee for SACIS.

Another option for counseling is to contact the counselors on campus. They are very short staffed, Ludlow said.

Morgan Murray can be reached at 581-2812 or mnmurray@eiu.edu.