It’s a controversial poster that appeared in recent days in Edmonton – and its sparked outrage and fear it could deter victims of sexual assault from reporting their incidents to police.
The posters include the phrase ‘Don’t be that girl’, and appear to be in response to an Edmonton Police Service campaign launched a few years ago called ‘Don’t be that guy’.
The posters said “Just because you regret a one night stand, doesn’t mean it wasn’t consensual.”
Pictures of the posters were circulated online Tuesday, sparking outrage from many through social media.
The Executive Director of the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton Karen Smith said she was saddened by the posters.
“I’m really disappointed that these people would decide to not recognize that there’s a significant problem of sexual assault in our community,” Smith said.
Police responded to the posters Wednesday, and said it works against the idea behind their own campaign, meant to encourage victims of sexual assault to come forward.
“We want to encourage people to come forward and report horrendous crimes,” Acting Insp. Sean Armstrong said. “To demean these crimes goes against that, and to belittle them goes against that.”
Police said Wednesday that about one percent of sexual assaults they investigate are found to have been fabricated.
Defense for the group behind the campaign
Men’s Rights Edmonton said reaction was expected, but it wasn’t expected to reach the level it did – the group said it was meant to create discussion and highlight concerns surrounding false allegations and double standards.
“I can’t even believe the kind of emotional response that it’s gotten out of people, just sort of a blanket, instant combination, sort of a knee-jerk ‘how could they do this?’” Karen Straughan, an unofficial spokesperson for the group said.
“It’s the exact same approach, you apply it to men, it’s a valuable message, you apply it to women, everybody freaks out.”
Dr. Cristina Stasia, a Women in Gender Studies professor at the University of Alberta said the discussion over consent needs to happen, but the posters could work against efforts to encourage victims of rape to report it.
“What they are doing is using rape myths to scare people away from reporting,” Dr. Stasia said. “If they wanted to start a dialogue about the meaning of consent, which is something we need to do, we need to talk more about consent, what it means; we need to start that dialogue younger.”
University of Alberta officials told CTV News they were disturbed by the poster campaign – the university didn’t condone it, and the posters don’t abide by the U of A’s poster policy.
U of A Acting Provost and Vice-President Academic Martin Fergusun-Pell issued a statement on the poster campaign Wednesday evening:
"These posters are offensive to many of our faculty, staff and students. The university does not condone the message, however we recognize people have a right to freedom of expression. In this instance, these posters violate our posting policies and procedures and have been removed."
"We very proud of the work of our faculty has done with SAVE in raising awareness about the very real issue of sexual assault, and are disappointed that anyone would try to take away from that work."
With files from Serena Mah
