rape culture

Me Too.

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#metoo

Why the fuck is anyone surprised?  Women, femmes and non-binary folks ALL experience sexual harassment and/or sexual assault.   Feminists and women have been talking about this for literally decades.  There have been a number of different twitter and social media campaigns which have gone viral in the past year or two alone.

Honestly, this was the first time it really got to me.  I was so triggered last night that I couldn’t sleep.  I was suddenly terrified that my ex would show up at my house and kill me.  This has been a fear of mine for years and it escalates during any times of transition and whenever media stories about women being murdered as a result of domestic violence hit the press.  I was lying there at midnight my heart racing, jumping at every sound.  My logical mind told me that I was safe, but my PTSD mind/body/heart was screaming that I was in danger.

And I was angry.

I’m angry because I have no faith that me tweeting or posting #metoo on social media will protect me.  Of course me too!  Of course!  I’ve been blamed for not telling anyone about being abused.  Then I was blamed for how I told people.  Then it seemed I was blamed for telling at all.  I wasn’t believed.  I wasn’t believed by SO many people and institutions.  Sometimes I feel blamed for not recovering more quickly, for being “cynical” or for struggling with PTSD.

Both of the times I experienced intimate partner violence, people could have known.  There were signs.  I was desperately sick.  In and out of hospital.  Trying to kill myself.  Self harming on a regular basis and starving myself.  It wasn’t a mystery that something was seriously wrong.

All the signs add up.  I had literally every possible coping mechanism and reaction to experiencing violence from disassociation, to depression, from shame to self hatred. When I finally talked about it, there was no logical reason to question my story.  But of course the stigma of mental illness clouded the picture.  Some people didn’t believe me because they thought I was mentally ill.  They were wrong.  I was mentally ill because #metoo.

Women, femme and non-binary people struggle with so many negative, and in many cases life long, impacts as a result of sexual assault and harassment.  In some ways, I feel like I’ve lost a good portion of my life.  It’s actually too painful to fully acknowledge and grieve the things (and parts of myself) I’ve lost as a direct result of violence.

I don’t want to keep talking about it.  I don’t even always want to tell the stories in this blog.

#metoo rubbed me the wrong way.

I want to see #ididit  or #ignoredit.  I want to see perpetrators get on social media and admit to the sexual assault and harassment they have done.  I want to see men, especially cis men, get online and talk about how they failed to intervene, how they participated in, and benefited from, rape culture.

Because make no mistake, #metoo, is about rape culture.  But it is time to stop placing the responsibility for changing rape culture on the survivors.  It’s time for men to step up and hold each other accountable.  It’s time for men to mentor young boys, teach them about consent culture and tell that that sexual assault and harassment is not cool, not okay and clearly illegal.    It’s time for criminal courts to sentence rapists to REAL punishments.  It’s time for police forces to actually take reports of sexual assault seriously, for officers to believe survivors and investigate the crimes competently and efficiently.  It’s time to take the work of ending gender based violence out of the sexual assault centres which support survivors, and into classrooms, homes, court rooms, and everywhere in our society.   Ending gender based violence is going to take an overhauling of the entire criminal justice, policing and education systems.

We need real accountability for perpetrators.  Women, feminists and sexual assault support workers have been doing this work for too long, unsupported by society.  We get labeled “radical” or “hostile” or experience other put downs.  We get further punished for speaking up against this violence within a society that profits from, and even praises violence against women.

We need to believe survivors.  We need to create safer spaces for those who can’t yet disclose to come forward when they are ready.  We need to create a safe place to land for survivors.   We need to create a consent culture and a society which fully supports survivors.

AND in parallel we need the help of MEN and the system (which was largely designed by white, affluent men) to hold perpetrators accountable.

One survivor is too many!  We shouldn’t need to scroll through pages and pages of folks posting #metoo to realize the magnitude of this problem.   We already know the magnitude, we need to stop pretending that we don’t.  We need an end to victim blaming and a realization that sexual assault and harassment is SO common and SO wide spread, that I don’t know a single woman or gender non-conforming person who couldn’t post #metoo if they had that option.

But they shouldn’t have to.

End gender based violence.   End violence against women.

Enough is enough.

Rape Culture.

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Rape culture is so pervasive and it starts impacting children in primary school.  I felt extremely triggered by something my younger daughter shared with me last week after school.  It’s been bothering me all weekend for a number of reasons.  I find rape culture upsetting.  Sometimes I just want to scream, cry and shout about gender based violence and fight against it.  Other times I’m exhausted, burnt out, spent from trauma and secondary trauma and I want to curl up in bed and hide from the world.  Just take it.  Just let it all happen.  Just zone out and give up.  Because I can’t fight rape culture alone.  It’s too big and I’m just one individual person.

My daughter is in primary school.  She told me that the boys in her class were pinning girls up against the wall and humping them.  She told me that the girls were squirming and trying to get away and that they did not like it. The teachers did nothing.  I asked my daughter if the boys did this to her.  She told me they didn’t because they don’t fully see her as a girl yet (she’s transgender).   I asked her if she told the teacher and she told me “No, because the teachers tell me to stay out of other people’s business”

My daughter knows that this behaviour is wrong.  She was upset about it which is why she told me.  We talked about consent.  We talked about bystander intervention and the difference between tattling and telling to get help.  She told me she might talk to a teacher she trusts on Monday.

I’m triggered for a number of reasons.

This type of behaviour shows just how young the messages of “boys will be boys” and “boys chase girls because they like them” etc.  are ingrained, in students, and teachers don’t question them.  My daughter consistently tells me that teachers don’t intervene in situations like this, instead telling the kids to sort it out themselves.  This tells me that the school isn’t teaching consent culture, nor are they valuing bystander intervention, nor are they clearly teaching and demonstrating the difference between tattling and telling.  These are important skills in combating rape culture, preventing sexual violence and helping stop sexual assault in situations where risks occur (i.e bystander intervention).

Though I was very glad my daughter hadn’t experienced this unwanted behaviour, it also drove home a very clear message that women and feminine presenting folks are the main targets of rape culture.  Because my daughter socially transitioned this year, her friends still perceive her as a boy, thus they do not target her for this type of sexualized bullying.  She exists in an in between space, not perpetrating the violence and not yet suffering it either.  Though she does experience some bullying related to being trans or being different, because the kids don’t yet perceive her as a “real girl,”  she is not yet a target for the unwanted sexual bullying.

All of this is extremely upsetting for me.  I’m angry that the school isn’t being more proactive in protecting these female students.  I’m angry that the school isn’t being more proactive in teaching the male students that sexual bullying is not acceptable.  Rape culture takes root during these early years.  It’s far too late to begin education in consent culture in high school.  It’s important to teach school age children that “no means no,”  that games should stop if both people aren’t having fun, that chasing girls isn’t cool unless everyone has agreed on the game, and that humping people against a wall is assault, not a joke.

As adults, role models, mentors, parents and teachers, we can root out rape culture.  We can fight it at the roots by doing primary prevention.  Teaching consent culture to young boys and masculine folks.  Teaching bystander intervention to all kids.  Teaching young girls and women to build each other up, support each other and look out for each other.

I can be a radical feminist.  I can be a social justice advocate.  I can fight to end gender based violence until my last breath.   But very little will change, if young boys are being implicitly taught that humping young girls against a school yard wall is acceptable behaviour and young girls are being taught that nobody will stop it from happening.

To My American Readers

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(photo credit Jessica Bennett)

I’m not an American citizen.  I can’t vote in the upcoming election, but today I’ve been triggered and upset due to the state of American politics.

American friends, I urge you to vote and to consider your vote carefully.

I, and other survivors of sexual violence, have struggled today.  Women (and others impacted by gender based violence) have felt a little more uncomfortable and that their world is a little less safe.  And decent men and masculine folks, you are harmed by these comments as well.

I’m talking about rape culture.

It’s 2016, and one of the people running to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world, is promoting racism, xenophobia, patriarchy, and rape culture.  A disturbing proportion of what this man says is actually considered hate speech by many people around the world.

A politician should be a leader and set the tone for the people they lead.

Glorifying sexual assault is disgusting and it gives people the clear message that consent is optional.  If you are rich and powerful you have the right to take sex. If someone says no, then just try harder.  Or better yet, don’t ask at all…just grab their ****.   It sickens me.

I’ve had a difficult day today.  As a woman, I do not exist to be a sexual object for others.  As a woman, I do not want to be treated as if my word is less valid because of my gender.  If I say no, I mean no.  Consent culture is important to me.  As a woman first and as a survivor of sexual violence.

I don’t want to live in a world where the leader of the country to the south of us grabs women without their consent and then brags about it after.  I don’t want my children (or any children!) seeing this as normal behaviour.  It’s not just locker room banter, it’s assault, harassment, hate speech and misogyny.   A world where this is normal reduces women to sexual objects and men to sex crazed, power hungry rapists.  It benefits no one.

I don’t want to live in a world where racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia are being spouted by world leaders.   It scares me, and I benefit from white privilege.  It scares me that anyone would even consider voting for this man. It scares me to think of the divisive direction this world will take with him at the helm.

It benefits no one.

We are better than this.

 

 

Innocent Until Proven Guilty.

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I’m feeling frustrated today about how survivors of sexual violence and abuse survivors in general have to constantly justify their existence to everyone on this planet, especially to people in authority.

We have a legal system which states that perpetrators are innocent until proven guilty.

But what about survivors?  Where are our rights to be considered innocent until proven guilty?

Why is it when a survivor comes forward and says “He raped me,” she is often met with doubt, blame, judgment, disbelief and then faced with barrier after barrier to being believed and getting support?

Doesn’t this strike you as wrong?

I’m here to suggest a radical position.  Our legal system can still consider perpetrators innocent until proven guilty, while at the same time survivors can be believed, validated, treated with respect and not accused of fabricating.

It’s very unlikely that a survivor would make up claims of abuse, especially considering the lack of support and validation in our society.

A few years ago my psychiatrist told me something I’ve been thinking about this week.  During the session I had been speaking a lot about my negative self esteem, my guilt, my shame, my body hatred, my struggles with anorexia and so on.  He asked me a question “If you were guilty of committing sexual abuse how long would you go to jail for?”   I answered him “Probably I wouldn’t go to jail, and if I did it would be for less than a year.”

He looked at me and said “You’ve been punishing yourself for more than 15 years for crimes you didn’t even commit.  Even if you were as guilty as you say you feel, you would have been out of jail long ago.  Stop punishing yourself.  Even criminals wouldn’t receive a 15 year sentence!”

It was a good point and I thought about it some.  I haven’t thought about it again until this week.

Honestly, my doctor was missing something in his analysis.  Maybe survivors, myself included, would have an easier time recovering and forgiving themselves, if they did not have to spend years justifying their experience and trying to convince others that the abuse really happened.

Maybe if women weren’t labelled as crazy or mentally ill.  Maybe if police treated women who report with respect and investigated their concerns quickly, thoroughly and with dignity for the survivor.  Maybe if the legal system wasn’t founded on white patriarchy.  Maybe if sexual assault conviction rates were higher.  Maybe if sentences for assault charges took into account the amount of harm that was done to the survivor.  Maybe if our society didn’t worry about “how it will impact his career” and instead considered “how it will impact the rest of her life.”

Because make no mistake.  Sexual assault impacts people’s lives.  It is not a crime that lasts for “just a few minutes”  it lives on in people for years, maybe forever.  The impact IS that voice inside the survivor which whispers “it’s your fault, you are dirty, you should be ashamed, nobody will believe you.”

Maybe we punish ourselves because there is no other option in a society that doesn’t validate what actually happened.  Maybe we doubt ourselves because society blames the victim.

I think that a large portion of the guilt and shame carried around by people like me was caused, not just by the perpetrator, but by a set of systems which are designed to blame us.

At this point in my life, I feel I have suffered an equal amount of trauma at the hands of systems that were supposedly designed to help me, as I ever did at the hands of my abusers.   This is a part of rape culture that we need to be talking about.

Please Believe me!

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One of lasting impacts of experiencing abuse within the psychiatric system and oppression within the legal system, medical system, child protection system and police (mainly due to the combination of being a woman and having a psychiatric history),  is that I’m very sensitive to not being believed or not feeling believed.

Honestly, sometimes I feel like I spend the majority of my life just trying to justify my lived reality to other people.  Trying to convince professionals, friends, neighbours, family members and strangers that I am telling the truth.  It’s exhausting.

And even when people DO believe me, I have trouble trusting.  I get defensive when I even perceive that I might not be being believed, or that someone is challenging me on the facts of my own life.  Not being believed or not feeling believed are major triggers for me.  They bring me back to times in my life, during abuse, when the abusers did not believe that what they were doing was abuse.  It brings me back to times when health care professionals did not believe me about various things.  These triggers cause me to feel unsafe in the present moment.

Survivors of sexual violence spend a lot of time fighting to be believed.  Because “systems of oppression” (aka the medical, legal, police, CAS etc) exist within, and to maintain, rape culture, folks who speak out about experiencing violence are often viewed with suspicion.  There are a lot of myths out there about sexual violence and not a lot of people who see the facts.

The more marginalized a survivor is, the more likely it will be that she will face oppression within these oppressive systems.  Thus, systems which supposedly exist to serve justice are not applied equally to all folks.  Stigma based on mental health status is one form of oppression, perhaps it is a part of abelism, perhaps it is it’s own type of oppression.  But survivors who are women face the patriarchy, People of Colour and Indigenous folks face racism and colonialism, queer survivors face homophobia, trans survivors face transphobia, folks with disabilities face abelism, economically marginalized folks experience discrimation related to poverty, and some people, due to intersecting oppression, experience all of these things.

For me, the fact that there have been important times in my life where I was not believed, has impacted on my ability to feel safe in speaking my truth. I find myself constantly justifying myself and sadly sometimes even second guessing myself.

Maybe I am crazy.  Maybe I really did make things up.  Maybe I am really the abusive one.  Maybe I’m not a good parent.  Maybe I am seriously mentally ill…

The worst part of having survived emotional abuse and systemic abuse through the mental health care system is that I don’t even believe myself half the time.

I’m tired today.  I’m doing my best, but I don’t feel capable.  I’m working as hard as I can, but I feel like a failure.  But I feel vulnerable.  I feel very vulnerable.  I feel more alone than I technically am.  I had to justify myself too much this week and I let it get to me.

My advice to survivors is this:

You are the expert in your own life.  Be your own hero.  Believe yourself, you have no reason to lie. You can trust your memories.  You can trust your instincts and gut feelings, even if you have no memories.  You can trust your body. 

You don’t have to justify yourself to anyone.  No is a complete sentence.

I believe you.  I believe that this isn’t your fault.  I know that if you could do better you would do better.  Your best is enough.