University as It Was Meant to Be: A Double Standard of Campus Safety

I’ve lived 19 years, and as each year passes, I understand more and more of what it means to be a woman. I’ll soon be turning 20. When I think of myself nearly 10 years ago, looking ahead at my life, I saw endless possibilities. I imagined a life where I could fly so high that questioning my safety and dignity was something that never even crossed my mind. You think 18 is just a small, fair number—until you turn 19 and realize that legal adult status doesn't grant you freedom—it just strips away the shield of childhood innocence. You are protected as a child; no one ever wants to hurt a child. But when you're 19, you’re not a child anymore, yet you’re not a full adult either. You are in a limbo where you aren't exactly seen as a woman yet. Soon I will be, and I am scared for what the next 10 years will bring.

Looking back on my life, I used to be comforted by the belief that the law would protect me—a legal promise that if anyone ever hurt me, I’d be safe, and I could trust the people in charge. But I’ve grown up, like most of us on campus, in the era of social media where our worlds have become much more superficial and artificial. I sometimes took my early privilege for granted, feeling brave enough to leave home and move to a university town to pursue my dreams. 

Like most women, since I stepped foot on a university campus three years ago, I have heard countless stories of women being raped, drugged, or losing their bodily autonomy. Yet, the repercussions are incredibly small. I’ve heard stories of men simply being moved to different residences—to do what, rape and drug more girls? I’ve heard of them being moved off-campus, leaving the victims to face their trauma every day when they see them in classes. I’ve heard stories of schedules being changed and switched around, but it is always the same old story.

We are so good at talking about prevention, but what about the girl who takes every single step the university tells her to take to prevent harm, and yet somehow still gets harmed? Now what do we do? The ultimate contradiction lies in the university’s distorted scale of justice. 

We watch the institution move swiftly and mercilessly to expel students for noise complaints or permanently ban them for using AI. Yet, when it comes to sexual violence and assault, the urgency vanishes. The administration treats trauma like a bureaucratic inconvenience rather than a crime, requiring a mountain of evidence and multiple victims before taking it seriously. This sends a chilling message to every person on campus: academic integrity and quiet hours are non-negotiable, but a student's bodily autonomy, dignity, and complete loss of identity is entirely disposable. 

When sexual violence trends on social media, the public congratulates itself on "raising awareness." But visibility is not victory. In reality, hyper-visibility without accountability often worsens the trauma, transforming real violence into fleeting digital content. For universities, social media provides a convenient shield—a platform to broadcast performative empathy, publish empty statements of solidarity, and ensure that absolutely nothing changes. As a woman on this campus, this is the bitter truth I have come to learn: institutions do not reform themselves.

 Us women go to University under the promise that higher education is where we find our purpose. But how can women find a purpose when we are constantly forced to focus on basic survival? The ongoing tolerance of rape culture on university campuses is not an accident; it is an administrative choice.

Look no further than the recent scene of events, where student rentals proudly displayed banners reducing women to sexual property. When the administration politely asks for them to be taken down, the perpetrators feel so untouchable that they simply hang them right back up. Why? Because they know the system protects them. We are tired of the standard playbook: a public incident happens, the university releases a carefully worded statement "unequivocally rejecting misogyny," a brief investigation is launched, and the status quo remains untouched.

If a student cannot stop themselves from being a predator, the solution is not a public relations campaign, a code of conduct seminar, or a temporary slap on the wrist. Stop hiding them. Stop protecting the institution's reputation over student lives. Kick them out. Get them out. Expulsion should not be a last-resort bureaucratic headache; it must be the immediate consequence for tearing away a human's right to safety. 

True change stalls because our institutions remain a patriarchy at their finest. After all, what government or administration has ever willingly rebelled against its own power structure? Even here, with the immense privilege of pursuing higher education in a country like Canada, gender remains a cage. To be born a woman is to inherit an invisible boundary line—to exist in a system that reflexively protects men while rendering our safety an afterthought. It forces a terrifying question about the future: what happens to the dreams I hold for ten years from now? Will they ever survive a world where my gender acts as a prison?

For generations, society has conditioned girls to carry the burden of prevention, teaching women how to hide, how to run, and how to survive. It is time to shift the weight. We must fiercely educate men that a woman’s body is a human body—sovereign, absolute, and not a battleground for your entitlement. 

These toxic ideals do not appear out of thin air; misogyny is a learned behaviour. Too many young men enter university without ever unlearning the social constructs that taught them to view women as property. They arrive on campus already secure in the belief that the system will inevitably protect them, their reputations, and their futures over the safety of the woman walking right beside them.

Every single woman on this campus arrived carrying the exact same hope: the belief that higher education would open up her world, not shrink it. We refuse to let that promise be taken from us. The administration may continue to protect its reputation over our lives, but we are done treating our basic safety as a negotiable luxury. Until the administration aligns its disciplinary actions with its stated values, campus safety will remain a marketing phrase rather than a reality.