Sexual Assault Awareness Month Archives

It’s time to embrace our voice as bystanders

April 11, 2018 By Contributor

By Julie Patrick

The #MeToo movement has been powerful – increasing visibility and giving strength to survivors while exposing behaviors that are troublesome or abusive. Too often as a society we have ignored these behaviors, excused, and normalized them while silencing survivors. We have been a part of the problem because we did not speak up – not as individuals, not as companies, not as industries or institutions. And that must stop. International Anti-Street Harassment Week is the perfect time to interrupt and challenge behaviors that are disrespectful. We can prevent harm.

It’s time to look out for each other

Understanding the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault in public, private, and online spaces helps us shape prevention strategies. That’s why Raliance, a national initiative of leaders working to end sexual violence in one generation, teamed up with Stop Street Harassment to gather facts behind the #MeToo movement.

In our national study on sexual harassment and assault, we learned that 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. Among those, 57% of women and 42% of men said their first experience occurred by age 17. In addition to young people, women with disabilities and men in socially marginalized groups experience high levels of sexual harassment and assault. This includes Hispanic men, men with disabilities, men living below the poverty level, and gay and bisexual men — in addition to men in rural areas.

It’s time to reclaim our public spaces

Sexual harassment takes place across a range of locations, but the most frequently listed location is a public space. And we can reclaim our public spaces when we all embrace our voice. We know that young people and socially marginalized folks are experiencing sexual harassment in public spaces most frequently. Our findings show us that sexual harassment and assault are abuses of power, disrespect, and disregard for human dignity. When we look out for each other, we challenge these behaviors and their root causes. One of the core values we can all share is the dignity of all people.

You can be a good bystander by showing up

Remember that your age, race, or gender may make it safer for you to speak up and act. When you witness a concerning situation, you can disrupt it. Remember every situation is different, and there are many ways you can respond. Disruptions and interruptions can be as simple as asking the harasser for directions or striking up a conversation with the person being harassed. If you don’t feel safe, contact the police or involve people around you to help. When you hear something, say something – being direct and honest that these comments or actions are not acceptable reinforces that they won’t be tolerated. You can tell someone their “joke” isn’t funny.

This is also important in our online interactions. Sexual harassment and assault are never the survivor’s fault. That’s why it’s important to believe and support survivors. Reinforcing these messages online when you see concerning posts helps shift the accountability from the person experiencing the harassment or abuse to the person who committed the abuse.

We are in this together!

Enforcing the behaviors we want to see will help us create a safer world. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect; no one should experience sexual harassment or assault. You can Embrace Your Voice this April as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month! Learn more tips for being a good bystander!

Julie Patrick is the National Partners Liaison for Raliance and a staff member at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Prior to this, Julie worked for over a decade in the Family Advocacy Division at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Preventing and Ending the Cycle of Street Harassment and Sexual Violence

April 4, 2017 By Contributor

Cross-posted from PreventConnect for International Anti-Street Harassment Week. Its author Meghna Bhat is a former SSH Blog Correspondent. She also hosted a podcast episode with Holly Kearl of SSH and Jessica Raven of Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) to talk about the anti-harassment transit campaign in the Washington, D.C. area.

Being born and raised in India, I assumed only young girls and women in my city experienced and witnessed multiple forms of sexual harassment in our country, especially on the streets and in public transit. Until I arrived in the U.S. in 2004 and continued to read about sexual violence, especially the blogs at Stop Street Harassment, I realized that street harassment is unfortunately prevalent all around the world in shared public spaces. Street harassment, often a troubling factor attributing to sexual violence and physical harassment, is often trivialized and normalized due to being a part of our everyday lives. Being catcalled, groped and grabbed, physically and sexually assaulted, stalked or exposed to flashings and lewd gestures are all types of street harassment. We often overlook the most troubling fact — most of us experience it everyday in our commutes, parks, walks, drives, bike rides and many more avenues. Imagine the trauma, the impact, and future implications on the lives of those affected and victimized.

Street harassment is also intersectional in nature as it often connects with sexual and domestic violence, racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, transphobia, reproductive injustice, Islamophobia, and other forms of oppressions.

*WMATA-CASS-SSH add in DC that features a transgender woman.*

Denying and trivializing the prevalence and the traumatic impact of street harassment on our communities continues to contribute to the hostile, negative, and misogynistic environment for young girls, women, and trans women. Unfortunately,when it comes to preventing street harassment and other related forms of sexual violence, the victims/ survivors are often held accountable for their victimization and are taught ways to prevent the harassment. Many women have been taught to be aware and cautious of their surroundings, and some have even learned self-defense, in an effort to increase their sense of safety and strength. These things are important, but when young girls and women are frequently asked to dress ‘appropriately’, asked to smile when catcalled, not to stroll ‘alone’ outside in the dark, always be with a friend in public, not to be ‘alone’ at bars, parks and other shared spaces– it contributes to rape culture and perpetuates sexual and domestic violence. Gendered policing and victim-blaming are not going to help prevent street harassment.

*An example of collaboration and collective community organizing between Stop Street Harassment, WAMTA Metro and Collective Action for Safe Spaces.*
*(L to R): Jason Minser, Jessica Raven, Lynn Bowser, Holly Kearl, Deputy Chief Leslie Campbell, and Morgan Dye*

This week (April 2-8, 2017) marks the 7th year of the International Anti-Street Harassment Week. In order to prevent and end the cycle of street harassment, we can take the following steps:

Collectively shift the culture in how our society sees and responds to street harassment and sexual violence. We need to identify protective factors and effective ways to change these harmful gender and social norms that condone harassment, sexism, and other forms of oppressions.
Take action: Get inspired by examples of events and activities of how other activists around the world are resisting and challenging street harassment in their towns. Take a look and see how you can adapt the elements of collaboration and community organizing to stop street-harassment in your community and town.
Share resources with survivors and communities: Those who has experienced street harassment and need help, can call toll-free: 855-897-5910 or click here for online hotline. You can find other resources here through Stop Street Harassment or read stories shared by other victims/ survivors of their experiences on Collective Action for Safe Spaces.
The month of April also marks Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM): It is important we recognize how street harassment, an often overlooked and minimized form of sexual harassment, is connected to sexual violence and other types of systemic and institutional oppressions. Check out how you can get involved.

USA: Gender Essentialism, Engaging Men in Sexual Assault Awareness, & Walk a Mile in Her Shoes©

April 27, 2016 By Correspondent

By LB Klein, Jen Przewoznik, & Jeff Segal

Every April, for Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), men all over the country stumble through public parks in high heels to raise awareness for the gender-based violence movement. Walk a Mile in Her Shoes© has been a staple of SAAM programming since 2001, and has been touted as “a world-wide movement” engaging “tens of thousands of men” in conversations on difficult topics like gender, power, and sexual assault in an accessible and fun way.

Men have embraced Walk a Mile in Her Shoes© – it’s very often the most well-attended SAAM event by men, and its popularity has helped raise tremendously needed funds for rape crisis centers and other anti-violence organizations nationally and internationally. However, many activists and organizers have begun to voice serious concerns over the popular event.

It is vital that we consider not only the intent but the impact of our sexual assault awareness events. In Walk a Mile in Her Shoes©, men step into high heels to show their solidarity with women. High heels are therefore held as emblematic of “women.” But while some women wear high heels, many women do not, and furthermore, women are often targeted specifically because they express themselves outside of the normative societal expectations of their gender. By equating high heels with “women,” we remove gender non-conforming women from our conversations about sexual violence entirely, and reinforce the common myth that people who present in ways that are considered masculine are not vulnerable to violence. Walk a Mile in Her Shoes© positions women as victims and men as perpetrators, but we need to also acknowledge that there are survivors of all gender identities, including men.

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes© also creates spaces that further marginalize transgender people. Forge, a national transgender rights organization, says activists should consider “whether they are re-victimizing more than a third of all victims by ignoring their very existence.” According to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, 64% of transgender people have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Transgender women are often incorrectly and offensively described as “men wearing women’s clothing,” which is often used to justify violence against them. Transgender women, especially those of color, face not only an incredibly disproportionate risk of experiencing sexual and intimate partner violence but also street harassment, police brutality, homelessness, joblessness, incarceration, and murder. It is vital for people working to end gender-based violence to closely ally with transgender and non-binary people instead of holding events that exclude and further marginalize them.

It is evident that Walk a Mile in Her Shoes© has raised attention, awareness, and funds, but at what expense? We cannot afford to raise awareness by perpetuating an essentialist view of what people should wear, how they should look, act, and be. The Walk a Mile in Her Shoes© narrative is accessible because it is reductive, and oversimplification in our work is, quite literally, dangerous. Of course, communities should still hold awareness raising events, but we must be intentional about changing the exact norms that perpetuate violence instead of reinforcing them. Events that re-victimize, erase, or marginalize survivors in their very concept do not have a place in our field.

So, what else can we do instead to engage men during SAAM?

We can hold events that encourage folks of all genders working together. We can bring smaller groups of men together for meaningful conversation or larger groups for fundraisers that are not built around reinforcing harmful gender norms. Perhaps, as Forge suggests, we should hold events that encourage everyone to break stereotypes about gender and discuss how harmful gender norms perpetuate violence. Then, we will be raising awareness of the true message of the movement to end sexual assault: that to end sexual assault, we must change culture.

LB Klein, MSW has dedicated her professional and academic life to ending gender-based violence, supporting survivors, and advancing social justice. She is a Consultant and Lead Trainer for Prevention Innovations Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. She is based in Atlanta, GA and will begin pursuing a doctorate in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this August.

Jen Przewoznik, MSW has over 15 years of experience working with/in women’s and LGBTQ communities as an educator, trainer, technical assistance provider, practitioner, and programevaluator. She is founder of the Queer Research Consulting Collaborative, a project designed to consult with researchers studying LGBTQ issues. Jen is currently the Director of Prevention & Evaluation at the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault and co-chairs the NC Sexual Violence Prevention Team and the NC Campus Consortium.

Jeff Segal, BS resides in NYC, where he works in the tech sector and moonlights as a professional dancer. He has been a part of the movement to end sexual violence for ten years. Jeff has four years of experience as a sexual violence crisis counselor, and currently is leading initiatives to make social dancing in New York a safer space.

7 Ideas for Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2016

April 1, 2016 By HKearl

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM)! In addition to taking part in International Anti-Street Harassment Week (April 10-16), here are 7 ideas for action in 2016.

1. Believe/help survivors. Believe survivors when they confide in you. Visit the website of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network to find information to help you help the survivor. And to find information to help yourself.

2. Find help. If you are a survivor who isn’t sure where to turn to or how to get help, I highly recommend visiting the RAINN website. I volunteered with them for 2.5 years and applaud their work. You can find information about a phone or online hotline and information about recovery.

* Do you identify as male? Visit the website 1 in 6 for resources specifically for you.

* Are you in the military? RAINN has a helpline called Safe Helpline specifically for survivors in the military.

3. Raise awareness on social media. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center provides a variety of resources each year for SAAM, including free reports and manuals and campaign materials. They also are running daily Instagram contests (#30DaysofSAAM) and have images you can post on your other social media accounts. April 5 is the SAAM Day of Action! Use tweets, posts, and status updates to share the word about #SAAM. Download their social media guide for specifics.

4. Wear jeans. Make a social statement by wearing jeans on April 27 as part of Denim Day in LA & USA. The day is a visible way to protest against misconceptions that surround sexual assault. Register today and raise awareness at your workplace, neighborhood, or community. Encourage each person who participates to donate one dollar to Denim Day to fund prevention programming.

5. Watch The Hunting Ground. This important Oscar-nominated documentary about campus sexual assault is now available for streaming on Netflix. Invite others to watch it (and schedule in some self-care time afterward as it’s an important but also upsetting film).

6. Order We Believe You. Annie C. Clark and Andrea L. Pino, the main subjects of The Hunting Ground film and founders of End Rape on Campus, have a new book coming out April 12, We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out. It includes stories from “students from every kind of college and university―large and small, public and private, highly selective and less so―[who] share experiences of trauma, healing, and everyday activism, representing a diversity of races, economic and family backgrounds, gender identities, immigration statuses, interests, capacities, and loves. Theirs is a bold, irrefutable sampling of voices and stories that should speak to all.”

7. Use the arts or march. Take part or organize arts-based initiatives or a march to raise awareness about sexual assault. Examples of initiatives include:

* Organize or participate in a Take Back the Night March in your community or on campus and make a statement that women have the right to be in public and to go about their lives without the risk of sexual violence. Order a kit with resources for the event.

* The Clothesline Project, an initiative to bear witness to violence against women. Women affected by violence decorate a shirt and hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of men’s violence against women.

* V-Day event offers several performance and film screening options for groups to implement in their community in February, March, and April. The purpose of these events is to raise awareness about violence against women and girls as well as raise money for local beneficiaries that are working to end violence. There is no theater or producing experience necessary. Visit the V-Day website to learn how to organize a V-Day event.

* Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS) is an award winning multimedia performance from A Long Walk Home you can bring to your community that entertains as well as educates the audience about sexual assault prevention. Featuring the music of Nina Simone, Maxwell, and Sade, SOARS tells one woman’s story about how she reclaimed her body, sexuality, and self-esteem after being sexually assaulted in college. SOARS is a cutting-edge theatrical experience that stars a diverse cast of women, combining photographs, dance, spoken-word poetry and music as a way to educate about healing from sexual violence.

* By wearing a white ribbon, White Ribbon Campaign members make a personal pledge to “never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls.” You can order materials to help challenge the community to speak out on the issue, learn about sexual violence, and raise public awareness.

(And if you’re unsure about the connection between street harassment and sexual assault, listen to a CALCASA Prevention podcast or watch a video where I talk about the connections. Briefly, some of the connections are that both behaviors fall on the same spectrum of gender violence; street harassment sometimes escalates into sexual violence; and street harassment can be re-triggering for survivors of sexual abuse.)

SAAM 2012: “Violence against women is as American as apple pie”

April 2, 2012 By HKearl

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) recently gave an eloquent speech advocating for the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). In addition to sharing her own stories of sexual abuse she said, “Violence against women is as American as apple pie.”

And she’s right. A December 2011 study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that as many as many as 1 in 3 women have experienced rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetimes. And as more and more men come forward with their sexual abuse stories, it’s clear that sexual abuse in general is an epidemic problem.

This is an outrage. Everyone should have the right to lives free from sexual violence. This should not be an American tradition. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and there are a lot of ways you can be involved in speaking out and creating change. Here are 10 ideas for 2012.

* Are you male? Visit the website 1 in 6 for resources specifically for you.

* Are you in the military? RAINN has a helpline called Safe Helpline specifically for survivors in the military.

3. No victim-blaming. Don’t engage in victim-blaming. For example, don’t ask about or comment on what a survivor was wearing or ask if they were drunk or if they were out late at night. On April 3 (tomorrow), Slutwalk Toronto is hosting a day of action for the first-ever International Day Against Victim-Blaming. They say to participate, “start conversations, take a stand, and take up space on April 3rd to fight for our right to live free of violence and victim-blaming. Join us in our mission to spread the word that those who experience sexual violence are never the ones at fault.” Use the twitter hashtag #EndVictimBlaming.

4. Write your Senators. Send a quick e-mail or make a quick phone call to your Senators asking them to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act.

5. #TweetAboutIt. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center provides a variety of resources each year for Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month, including free reports and manuals and campaign materials. This year, they’re hosting a Tweet About It Tuesday every Tuesday at 2 p.m. EST throughout the month. Various people will lead the tweet-chat on a different topic each week, using the hashtag #TweetAboutIt. Read more and join in.

6. Wear jeans. Make a social statement by wearing jeans on April 25 as part of Denim Day in LA & USA. The day is a visible way to protest against misconceptions that surround sexual assault. Order their Denim Day Action Kit and raise awareness at your workplace, neighborhood, or community. Encourage each person who participates to donate one dollar to Denim Day to fund prevention programming. (I just ordered my kit.)

7. Work to prevent sexual abuse of Native Americans. Native American women face the highest rates of rape of any demographic: 1 in 3 will be raped in their lifetime.

* Learn more and read about the maze of injustice that keeps survivors from finding justice.

* Donate to Project Respect, an organization that works to combat sexual and gender based violence amongst South Dakota’s Native American youth. The funds will go toward creating a youth shelter/programming area and a summer mentoring program that pairs Native American teens with adolescents entering middle school.

8. Advocate against military sexual assault. Sexual assault in the military is a well documented problem, yet the military does very little to truly address or prevent it.

* Sign a petition addressed to the U.S. Senate asking them to support H.R. 3435, The STOP Act, and H.R. 1517, The Holley Lynn James Act, legislation that would require the military to do more.

* Watch the trailer for a Sundance Film Festival Award-Winning documentary called The Invisible War about military sexual assault. It will be released on June 15, 2012.

* Donate to AAUW, an organization where I work in my day job, which provides financial support to two sets of plaintiffs who are former service members who were raped or sexually assaulted by their co-workers and are bravely suing the Department of Defense.

9. Use the arts or march. Take part or organize arts-based initiatives or a march to raise awareness about sexual assault. Examples of initiatives include:

* Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS) is an award winning multimedia performance you can bring to your community that entertains as well as educates the audience about sexual assault prevention. Featuring the music of Nina Simone, Maxwell, and Sade, SOARS tells one woman’s story about how she reclaimed her body, sexuality, and self-esteem after being sexually assaulted in college. SOARS is a cutting-edge theatrical experience that stars a diverse cast of women, combining photographs, dance, spoken-word poetry and music as a way to educate about healing from sexual violence.

* Organize or participate in a Take Back the Night March in your community or on campus and make a statement that women have the right to be in public and to go about their lives without the risk of sexual violence. Order a kit with resources for the event.

10. Support consent. One fun way to work to prevent sexual assault is to talk about and emphasize consent in all sexual activities. Here are two amazing initiatives you can bring to your campus or community to do that:

* The Consensual Project is an interactive, sex-positive, fun workshop during which participants can learn why consensual hooking up is hotter hooking up. College students are an ideal audience for this workshop.

* The Line is a film that explores the intersection of sexual identity, power, and violence. How do we negotiate our boundaries as sexually liberated women? How much are we desensitized to sexual violence? Through conversations with football players, educators, survivors of violence, prostitutes, and attorneys, this personal film explores the “grey area” and the elusive line of consent.

(And if you’re unsure about the connection between street harassment and sexual assault, listen to a CALCASA Prevention podcast where I talk about the connections. Briefly, some of the connections are that both behaviors fall on the same spectrum of gender violence; street harassment sometimes escalates into sexual violence; and street harassment can be re-triggering for survivors of sexual abuse.)