Same Old Sad Story

Last Friday a few of the other CCSC volunteers and I went to a program called “Telling Stories” at the University of Buffalo which was about sexual assault and domestic abuse/intimate partner abuse. The program consisted of an original play about campus sexual assault, a panel discussion with people associated from the university, a documentary called Telling Amy's Story which was about a woman who was murdered by her husband in November of 2001, and a panel discussion by people in the Buffalo community who work with victims of domestic violence.

The program went exactly how I expected (except for a fire alarm at the very beginning which I thought might be apart of the play until everyone started evacuating). First, it was very upsetting. Second, there was a lot about where a victim of sexual assault or domestic violence can go for help and almost nothing about prevention. Only one man on the first discussion panel briefly mentioned not being a passive bystander.

Don't misunderstand me, it's extremely important for victims to know where they can go for help and I'm glad there was education about that at this event, but it would be better for the assaults and abuse never to happen in the first place. This is another example of the relationship between charity and social justice: we need both until the actions for social justice work, thereby making the charity no longer necessary.

I want to go to a panel discussion on how to stop these things from happening in the first place. Sexual assault and domestic violence/intimate partner violence is something that's very scary, complicated, and difficult to prevent. Prevention is more difficult than helping victims after/during the abuse (though that's far from easy), so maybe it's too hard a subject to touch and people would rather not go there. A big part of it is a problem of culture, society, and gender expectations/norms and those are things that are not easy to change and the thought of changing them is very scary for some people.

Until the shame and stigma moves off the victim on to the abuser we'll have domestic violence and sexual assault. Until we stop simplifying these issues as women with low self-esteem staying in bad relationships and men with anger problems abusing their girlfriends/wives we'll have domestic violence. Until we stop shrugging and saying there is something wrong with men we'll have domestic violence and sexual assault. Until it becomes easier for victims to leave their abusers we'll have domestic violence. Until we start believing victims who speak up we'll have sexual assault and domestic violence. I could go on and on.

I don't know the solutions, but I'd like to have an open, thoughtful discussion about possible solutions.