Hello! My name is Roxy Cowan and I live in Los Angeles California. I am currently 15 years old and attend Marlborough School, an all girls school in Hancock Park. When I have free time, I absolutely love listening to music, watching films (or learning about them, reading about them, making them; anything that has to do with film makes me happy). I also love acting and I am currently interning at an acting camp that I used to go to. I love working with the younger kids and I always see myself in them. I can see their excitement when they arrive at rehearsal and when they step on stage the first time of the night. Along with that, I participate in the robotics program at my school and I've met so many amazing people while doing this but it has also shown me some intense female inequality. 

Last year in my honors history class, we were required to write a letter to someone in our community about something that is important to us. I automatically knew what I was going to write about: campus rape. I wrote my letter and sent it off to the President of USC. I waited anxiously for a response back and checked the mail everyday. One night, I came home from school and found a letter sitting on my desk from USC. Squealing with excitement, I quickly opened it and read it with more interest than I have ever read anything before. However, I wasn't completely satisfied with their response. They told me that yes they knew about what was going on and they were doing things to end it, but they never told me what they were doing or how I could get involved. I knew that colleges knew about it and were trying to fix it already, but what I wanted to know was what they were doing to stop it and any plans they had moving forward. 

Flash-forward to about a month ago. Brock Turner was convicted of sexual assault of a female student on the Stanford campus, where he was also attending. He was sentenced to six months in jail. He served three months. How is this fair? The reason I told you everything about myself in the beginning was not only to tell you things about myself but was to tell you my story. Every other girl on this earth has a story too. Every girl has likes and dislikes and hobbies. Every girl who has ever been a victim of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault has a story too. When I was researching college campus rape, I was astonished to find the number of cases that were reported each year. That is such a small number compared to the ones that aren't reported and that is an even smaller number than the ones that happen each year around the United States. Victims should not be blamed for being involved in a sexual assault. Why is it that Brock turner got three months in jail but a man found with marijuana can receive a sentence of years in jail. I don't want to be afraid of being a victim of attempted or completed sexual assault. Now, this isn't information that you don't already know and I'm well aware of that. However I don't know what to do within my community to raise awareness for this issue. I know the internet is very involved and I constantly see articles about it. And I know there is not much the government or even I can do to stop rape from happening because it usually occurs in a isolated area away from a lot of people but is there anything that can be done? 

Thank you.

Roxy Cowan