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 Jennie OConnell and Cassie Pegg-Kirby. 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 Universitys 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 (Edwards, 2009). 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.
The next section, 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

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(Edwards, 2009). In Module Three: What Are We Capable of Doing Bystanders: Identifying
Self-Defining Moments and Overcoming Barriers, trainees were taught the common obstacles
individuals experience when deciding to be Green Dot Bystanders (Edwards, 2009). The
obstacles came in the forms 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 (Edwards, 2009). 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

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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, p. 107). 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 game and pitting
individuals against each other.
Another aspect of sexual violence that is helped being reduced due to Green Dots
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 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

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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, p. 446-447).
This statistic shocked me, and made me that much more thankful for the implementation of
Green Dot onto Kents 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 realize was the most common form of sexual violence. Ultimately,
sexual violence prevention programs need 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 persons eyes to what happens on campuses
every day. The training helped to spark my passion for being an active bystander, and Im 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. One aspect of my

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training, though, that I hope will change in the future is the number of male trainees who
attended. There was one male facilitator and maybe two males who showed up for training. I was
very excited for those men to participate in training, but I couldnt help but wonder where all the
other men were? Male cooperation in training attendance is what could really make or break
Green Dot. It does the campus community very little good if only one gender is consistently
attending training sessions because then only half of the campus population is becoming aware
of the power of being an active bystander. So much more good can be done with more males
present at training, and that is an aspect of the training that should definitely be worked on.
Although I do not believe my one day of training will change the entirety of Kents
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 Deans 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 Allans (2011) text, in general, the focus of liberal feminism is rights,
justice, and fairness as key concepts for eliminating gender-based discrimination (p. 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,

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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. Another point Allan makes about liberal feminism is
that its perspective is framed by understandings of power as a positive social good a good that
is distributed unequally on the basis of sex or gender (p. 20). From this explanation of Liberal
Feminism I began to view power in the form of red and green dots. Power is distributed
unequally between red and green dots on the basis of predators and bystanders. It is Green Dots
mission to counteract that imbalance, although I suppose in the case of Green Dot imbalance is
still wanted, just in the favor of bystanders as opposed to predators. Liberal Feminism seems to
be that most commonly employed form of feminist activism, and I believe Green Dot falls into
that category.
Green Dot lets bystanders know how much power they have to stop sexual violence on
college campuses. Joel Epstein (2002) puts it perfectly when he says, Often unaware of their
social influence on others, bystanders frequently have provided the pivotal social sanction that
serves to promote or prevent violent provocation among others (p. 92). I believe Green Dot has
the ability to empower both men and women in college campus communities, and should be
implemented on every college campus so as to help stop the violence now. Victim blaming and
characterizing every male as a predator will not stop the violence, it will only perpetuate it.
Through programs like Green Dot, though, change can happen and bystanders can choose how
they wish to make a stand. By holding every person on campus responsible for the safety of
others the violence can stop, and it will, one green dot at a time.

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Works Cited
Allan, E.J. (2011). Womens status in higher education: Equity matters. ASHE Higher Education
Report, 37(1). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Banyard, V.L., Moynihan, M.M., & Crossman, M.T. (2009). Reducing sexual violence on
campus: The role of student leaders as empowered bystanders. Research in Brief, 50 (4),
(446-457).
Edwards, Dorothy. (2009). Guide to livin it: one green dot at a time. College Version 11/11.
(1-38).
Epstein, Joel. (2002). Breaking the code of silence: Bystanders to campus violence and the law
of college and university safety. Stetson Law Review, 32, (91-124).
Potter, S.J., Moynihan, M.M., Stapleton, J.G., Banyard, V.L. (2009). Empowering bystanders to
prevent campus violence against women: a preliminary evaluation of a poster campaign.
Violence Against Women, 15 (1), (106-121).