blind rage cures headaches, right?
May. 10th, 2010 02:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
harborshoreThis post at unfunnybusiness has the relevant details plus links to a number of eloquent posts on rape culture and related issues, and there are many other good posts floating around. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seperis links to many of the ones that haven't been added to the unfunnybusiness post.
Therefore, I'm going to keep it short. I've been a de facto rape/sexual harassment counselor a number of times (way too many) by now. I don't claim extensive expertise, nor do I claim much training. I don't want to talk about my friends' experiences, they were worse than mine and they're not mine to share. Therefore, in this post, I briefly discuss my own experience with sexual harassment and what that has to do with the idea of policing the reactions of survivors. Using myself as a text, you know the drill by now. I'm really angry right now, so I'm sorry if it's not completely coherent or cohesive.
The one thing I have learned from working as an RA and from other situations that have come up: you do not ever tell survivors what to do with their experience. You can tell them about their options and what they mean, but you do not tell them that unless they are willing to attach their name to a police report or any kind of public claim about what happened, their experience is not real. You just. You do not. People who have, in one way or another, their control taken away from them, they need to get it back. They make the decisions, you don't.
Okay, so, my experience. I was sexually harassed at one of my temp agency placements. It only went on for two days, because after that I figured out that if I ignored him, he stopped. I never told my contact at the temp agency, because after having him make a really fairly lewd sexual comment about me and him in front of my placement boss and six coworkers and having no one say a word, I didn't know if I'd be taken seriously. So I told my friend and then I told my mother, who helped me figure out the strategy, and we agreed that if it didn't work, I'd tell my temp agency contact.
It did work. For the rest of my placement, I avoided being alone with him in a room--he still scared me, even if I was incredibly good at pretending he didn't. I never told anyone in charge, I just wanted to get through the placement and I was worried if I did say something that I'd be flagged as a problematic temp. I needed the money, and I needed to be able to come back and work for the same agency again.
I tell other people about it as a way of illustrating the degrees of sexual harassment and why even mild cases like mine are not okay: because I was scared. At work. Every day at work for three weeks. Less and less as time went on, but I was never comfortable being close to him and avoided being alone with him.
I make light of it a lot, I joke about it, and it was mild compared to what a lot of my friends have gone through. But it's like--he scared me. At work. And I was afraid to tell because I thought I wouldn't be believed. Look, children, rape culture. A much milder example than many others, because he didn't hurt me and he didn't touch me, but still. I, with my teeny-tiny experience of harassment, was afraid to tell. How much worse must that not be for people who have had worse things happen to them? I'm in no way advocating keeping it quiet, obviously. Obviously. But I'm trying to demonstrate how terribly difficult it is to go against the impulse to not report.
My point is: there are many reasons why survivors don't tell. I can't even express how horrified I am at the idea of forcing survivors who do make some kind of report to go through it again, and to do so in public. It is their experience. The end. It's no more fucking difficult than that. Do not tell them it's not real if they're not willing to own it in a forum specified by you. That is not your goddamn decision.
seperis links to many of the ones that haven't been added to the unfunnybusiness post.Therefore, I'm going to keep it short. I've been a de facto rape/sexual harassment counselor a number of times (way too many) by now. I don't claim extensive expertise, nor do I claim much training. I don't want to talk about my friends' experiences, they were worse than mine and they're not mine to share. Therefore, in this post, I briefly discuss my own experience with sexual harassment and what that has to do with the idea of policing the reactions of survivors. Using myself as a text, you know the drill by now. I'm really angry right now, so I'm sorry if it's not completely coherent or cohesive.
The one thing I have learned from working as an RA and from other situations that have come up: you do not ever tell survivors what to do with their experience. You can tell them about their options and what they mean, but you do not tell them that unless they are willing to attach their name to a police report or any kind of public claim about what happened, their experience is not real. You just. You do not. People who have, in one way or another, their control taken away from them, they need to get it back. They make the decisions, you don't.
Okay, so, my experience. I was sexually harassed at one of my temp agency placements. It only went on for two days, because after that I figured out that if I ignored him, he stopped. I never told my contact at the temp agency, because after having him make a really fairly lewd sexual comment about me and him in front of my placement boss and six coworkers and having no one say a word, I didn't know if I'd be taken seriously. So I told my friend and then I told my mother, who helped me figure out the strategy, and we agreed that if it didn't work, I'd tell my temp agency contact.
It did work. For the rest of my placement, I avoided being alone with him in a room--he still scared me, even if I was incredibly good at pretending he didn't. I never told anyone in charge, I just wanted to get through the placement and I was worried if I did say something that I'd be flagged as a problematic temp. I needed the money, and I needed to be able to come back and work for the same agency again.
I tell other people about it as a way of illustrating the degrees of sexual harassment and why even mild cases like mine are not okay: because I was scared. At work. Every day at work for three weeks. Less and less as time went on, but I was never comfortable being close to him and avoided being alone with him.
I make light of it a lot, I joke about it, and it was mild compared to what a lot of my friends have gone through. But it's like--he scared me. At work. And I was afraid to tell because I thought I wouldn't be believed. Look, children, rape culture. A much milder example than many others, because he didn't hurt me and he didn't touch me, but still. I, with my teeny-tiny experience of harassment, was afraid to tell. How much worse must that not be for people who have had worse things happen to them? I'm in no way advocating keeping it quiet, obviously. Obviously. But I'm trying to demonstrate how terribly difficult it is to go against the impulse to not report.
My point is: there are many reasons why survivors don't tell. I can't even express how horrified I am at the idea of forcing survivors who do make some kind of report to go through it again, and to do so in public. It is their experience. The end. It's no more fucking difficult than that. Do not tell them it's not real if they're not willing to own it in a forum specified by you. That is not your goddamn decision.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-10 12:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-05-10 11:16 am (UTC)Thank you, for saying it, and for saying it much more eloquently and succintly than I ever could. ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-10 11:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-05-13 03:05 am (UTC)It means a lot for me to read it.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-15 12:36 am (UTC)