Green Means Go and Spread the Word: An Overview 1

Green Means Go and Spread the Word: An Overview

Kedron Taylor

Kent State University

Green Means Go and Spread the Word: An Overview 2

For the final portion of my Feminist Activism Project, I chose to become a trained Green

Dot Bystander. I attended an eight hour training session which took place on campus and was

facilitated by a group of four individuals including Jenny O’Connell and Cassie Kirby-Pegg. The

core topic of my Feminist Activism project for this semester was sexual violence which is such a

broad topic, so I decided to focus in on the Green Dot Bystander program since it was a new

program debuting on Kent State University’s campus this semester, and was also a program that

I was not familiar with. Sexual Violence on college campuses is a growing epidemic, and needs

to be addressed in more ways than one. Green Dot addresses sexual violence prevention in a

number of ways, and offers bystanders a number of different opportunities to stop the violence.

At my Green Dot training, myself and probably around five other students were present

as well as about five members of university staff. During training, the content to be learned was

divided into four modules that were taught by the various facilitators. Module One: “Tiny

Pushes” was an introduction to Green Dot and helped explain the idea behind the program. As I

had mentioned in my previous paper, individuals are meant to envision a map that shows an area

under attack by a widespread epidemic. Specifically that epidemic is sexual violence, and on the

map red dots indicate an act of power-based violence whereas green dots represent a behavior,

choice, or action that communicates intolerance of that violence (Green Dot Training Manuel).

Thus, the Green Dot Bystander training is done in an attempt to train more people on how to be

the green dots on that map, so that maybe one day the green dots will over populate the red dots

and sexual violence can cease to exist.

Next, Module Two: “Not to Be Neutral” Recognizing Red Dots taught trainees how to be

able to recognize Red Dots in various situations as well as how to identify an individual who has

the opportunity to act as a Green Dot Bystander in those same situations. In Module Three:

Green Means Go and Spread the Word: An Overview 3

“What Are We Capable of Doing” Bystanders: Identifying Self-Defining Moments and

Overcoming Barriers, trainees were explained to them the common obstacles individuals

experience when deciding to be Green Dot Bystanders. The obstacles came in the form of:

bystander dynamic obstacles, peer influence-related obstacles, and personal obstacles. We were

taught that a potential red dot plus our personal obstacle will lead us to our own self-defining

moment in which we will choose to do nothing or become an active bystander. The final section,

Module Four: “Above All, Try Something” Reactive and Proactive Green Dots, helps individuals

assess the situation and decide if they would like to be a proactive or reactive bystander. The

most important aspect of this module was to assess your own personal safety when deciding

which type of bystander you would like to be. Throughout all four modules, trainees engaged in

skills practice exercises, and were also encouraged to actively participate in the training so as to

gain a better understanding of the mission of Green Dot, and thus become the best Active

Bystander possible.

Through my completion of this training I learned a lot more about the different kinds of

sexual and power-based violence that occurs on college campuses. Originally, when I thought

about sexual violence I thought about rape, but there are so many more aspects to that type of

violence. In training we learned about sexual violence along with partner violence and stalking

violence which also impact many college campuses throughout the country as well as the world.

I feel as if this training really opened my eyes to the power of having more active bystanders

taking a stand on campuses, and how much of a difference this program could make if more

people were to get involved. According to some research done at The University of New

Hampshire, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended

Green Means Go and Spread the Word: An Overview 4

adoption of a public health approach that focuses on the responsibility of all community

members to reduce sexual violence and emphasizes evaluating the effectiveness of prevention

strategies before they are widely disseminated (CDC, 2004)” (Potter et al, 2009). Green Dot is a

perfect example of that kind of public health approach to reducing sexual violence because

Green Dot is intentionally targeting the campus community to take a stand as opposed to singling

out men and women to take precautions based on their sex and preconceived notions of whether

they will be predator or victim. In my mind, a community-based approach to reducing the

violence makes the most sense because you are holding a larger group of individuals responsible

for keeping one another safe as opposed to playing the blame card and pitting individuals against

each other.

Another aspect sexual violence that is helped being reduced due to Green Dot’s

community-based approach is the occurrence of acquaintance rape. Active Bystanders in the

Green Dot program are trained to be proactive or reactive in all instances of potential sexual

violence, not just situations where they believe the victim does not know his or her predator. This

aspect of Green Dot is important because it adds partner violence into the array of situations for

bystanders to be aware of, and does not consider acquaintance rape or partner violence to be

lesser offenses just because the individual and the attacker know one another. In one of the

articles we were assigned to read in class, “Reducing Sexual Violence on Campus: The Role of

Student Leaders as Empowered Bystanders,” the authors found that:

Despite the fact that college campus communities are at-risk environments for sexual

violence, a recent report by Karjane et al. (2005) finds great variability nationally in the

extent to which campuses are working to prevent this problem. Their study of college and

university responses to sexual violence found that fewer than half of the schools in their

Green Means Go and Spread the Word: An Overview 5

study offered training related to sexual assault. Only 60% of the surveyed schools offered

educational prevention programs, with few of these programs focused on acquaintance

rape, the most common form of sexual violence (Banyard et al, 2009).

This statistic shocked me, and made me that much more thankful for the implementation of

Green Dot onto Kent’s campus. Prevention programs need to be utilized on college campuses in

order to help reduce sexual violence, and Green Dot is a way to do that. It was also alarming to

me that most of the programs that are offered do not even focus on acquaintance rape, which

before reading this I did not even realize was the most common form of sexual violence.

Ultimately, sexual violence prevention programs should be offered on campuses, and Green Dot

appears to be the most qualified program to be implemented due to its community-based

approach, and acknowledgement of acquaintance rape.

As you can probably assume from my writing, after training to be a Green Dot Bystander

I have become very passionate about preventing sexual violence on campus, and I want other

Kent State Students to feel the same. Although I only attended one training session, I believe

going through that day of training can really open a person’s eyes to what happens on campuses

every day. The training helped to spark my passion for being an active bystander, and I sure it

can do the same for others who take the training as well. What is great about training to be a

Green Dot Bystander is that it provides you with the necessary skills to detect a potential red dot

situation as well as what you should do in response. Personally, I am not a very confrontational

person, so in a lot of situations I may choose to be proactive as opposed to reactive toward a red

dot situation, but at least I would be doing something. The worst thing someone could do when

faced with a red dot situation where another individual could become a victim of sexual assault is

to do nothing and assume someone else will do something in their absence. Although I do not

Green Means Go and Spread the Word: An Overview 6

believe my one day of training will change the entirety of Kent’s campus, and effectively

eliminate sexual violence on campus, I do believe being informed is valuable and can at least

start the process of reducing sexual violence. I am hoping to set up a training session in the

future for the Dean’s Office of the College of Education, Health and Human Services where I am

a graduate assistant. I figure that even if the office is unable to commit to a full 8-hour training

session, at least it will be able to participate in some kind of training and benefit educationally.

Spreading awareness of what we can do as bystanders is the most important component of Green

Dot, and will help to end future acts of sexual violence.

The notion of Active Bystanders in regards to the Green Dot initiative can definitely be

considered a form of feminist activism, but more specifically viewed from a Liberal Feminism

perspective. According to Allan’s text, “in general, the focus of liberal feminism is rights,

justice, and fairness as key concepts for eliminating gender-based discrimination” (20). Upon

reading this definition of liberal feminism, my first thought was the connection between this

lense of feminist activism to Green Dot in regards to gender-based discrimination. Green Dot

does not singularly classify victims of sexual violence as women. Men can be victims as well,

and nowhere in our Green Dot training manual does it say to treat male victims differently or to

not consider men victims at all. The goal of Green Dot is to eliminate all kinds of sexual

violence, no matter the gender of the victim. A