No means no

No means no

Monday 16 December 2013

Drying the tears



A year ago a young physiotherapy intern, Jyoti Singh Pandey, was brutally raped and sexually abused with an iron bar by six men in Delhi, India. My heart went with Jyoti when I read her story. Part of it is still with her. Most people could never imagine the horror she went through, the feeling of abject helplessness, the pain, the despair. People could feel empathy, but they couldn’t experience the feeling.

I could. I’d been there. The difference? I’m alive to remember my own story.

I never knew Jyoti and yet I felt like I knew a part of her very, very well. A year ago the soulless rape and murder of this young woman who had a lifetime ahead of her stirred memories I had tried so hard, unsuccessfully, to deal with. In the year since her death I have experienced a huge range of highs and lows as one thing after another seemed to want to grind me down. I have shed more tears than I thought possible, I have at times felt like I was going a little insane. Until I realised – I actually am a little insane.

How can you go through an experience like mine and not suffer PTSD in one form or another? All the years of people thinking I was a strong woman, only to now, 40 years on from that event, be feeling like a small child who needs her mother’s hugs.

When I wrote my website I was finally confronting memories and emotions I had closeted for 40 years.  Every time before I write now I choose a CD and listen for a while before I start writing. What I choose sets the mood for my writing, regardless of what the music actually is. Sometimes it could be a serious Tori Amos, sometimes a light orchestral. Today it was Dario G’s “Sunchyme”. I didn’t want anything too serious, and yet the tears started even before I started to type. Maybe it’s just the act of sitting down and knowing that I am going to revisit something so wicked that sets me off.

There are hundreds of thousands of women and girls like Jyoti and me all over the world. Some who won’t survive the brutalization inflicted on them, and others who survive and have to live with it. Some find an acceptance, some bury the memories. That was me, for the first 20 years. But you simply have no way of knowing what, if anything, can trigger a memory, and that was my undoing. And the longer I didn’t deal with it, the worse the triggers became until now my responses to a trigger can range from withdrawal and tears to fighting back – loud and angry.  The trigger is not necessarily the actual action of rape, but could be a smell, a colour, a word, a sound. It’s confronting for those who don’t know where I am coming from and why, to say something that they may have in all innocence not realised was not “safe” and to be faced with a hellcat tearing them down. Or to wonder where the sudden gush of tears came from. Or to watch my retreating back as I suddenly have to leave the room, no explanation.

I have been to counselling off and on for a number of years now, but the reports of what happened to Jyoti on top of other situations in my life finally overcame my carefully erected barriers and it all fell apart a year ago.

These days I cope by staying as busy as I can.  I get involved easily, but I also get un-involved easily if I recognise that a situation or cause is not right for me.

I know, this morning, that there was another second feeling of inadequacy that triggered the tears. It had absolutely nothing to do with rape or sexual abuse or Jyoti. It had everything to do with me feeling that I had let down my very best friend, my Johnson bulldog Jordan. I discovered some flecks of blood by her bedding, and checked her to see where it had come from. She has an infection in her ear which must have been giving her hell, and I hadn’t noticed it. I am ashamed that I missed something like that in my beautiful girl when I owe her – quite literally - my life. It was Jordan I thought about a year ago when I sat on my bed with a packet of sleeping tablets, at my lowest point ever, and just wanted the pain to go away. I thought about who would look after my two babies – Jordan and her kennel-brother Bundy, an English bull terrier. They are both senior dogs, both rescue dogs, and Jordan has been with me for 6 years – she’s now 11. I couldn’t leave her like that. She saved my life. I owe her so very much. And yet I had failed her.

So this morning the tears came from thoughts of Jyoti, my own survival, and my beautiful best friends. As I finish writing this the tears have stopped and Dario G is singing “the sun machine is coming down and we’re gonna have a party”. Perhaps I won’t have a party, but today I think I will take my best friends to the beach, buy some flowers, and leave them along the beach walk in memory of Jyoti. And perhaps also as a simple way of acknowledging that I am still working through the grief about what my life could have, should have been, but for the action of the men who took my freedom and self-respect all those years ago.

Monday 9 December 2013

Such a long way still to go...


December 20, 1993 - UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women is adopted. Why, after 20 years, do we still have so far to go? It seems almost every day new stories of violence against women and girls are reported in one medium or another. I follow pages on Facebook which show the emotional depths that family and friends reach when their loved ones are injured - or worse. 

In November 2011 17-year-old Rehtaeh was raped at a party, suffered the enormous pain and indignity of pictures of her abuse illegally spread online, and tried to cope with the consequent bullying. In April this year she committed suicide. Rehtaeh's mother, Leah, started a Facebook page in her memory. It's often so sad to read the heartache that Leah faces daily.

In April 2011 Lori was a victim of a severe domestic violence attack. Lori was punched and repeatedly kicked in the face and ribs. She has spent much of the last two years in and out of hospital having surgery after surgery to reconstruct her broken body. She and her sister, Kristine, started a Facebook page and a business, Peace, Love, & Purple to continue to increase awareness of the purple ribbon causes against domestic violence. 

In the news we're told that serial sex attacker Adrian Bayley, a recidivist violent sexual offender, has been jailed for at least 35 years for the brutal rape and murder of ABC staffer Jill Meagher on a Melbourne street in September last year. Bayley should never have been on that street - he was already known in the court system for violent sexual attacks.

A year ago Delhi student Jyoti Singh Pandey was raped and brutalised by 5 men and later died of her injuries.  It took an international outcry before the Indian justice system acted to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In November this year a parliamentary committee in Britain was told that police are failing to investigate some of the most serious crimes, including rapes and sexual abuse of children, in an attempt to massage official statistics.

It's getting harder to be a woman in an Arab country - in Yemen, Morooj Alwazir, co-founder of SupportYemen, says: "It is a struggle to even be part of society, it is a struggle to speak your mind, to feel safe in your own neighbourhood, your only safe space is your bedroom." The UN estimates that 5,000 women are killed each year for "dishonoring" their families. About two-thirds of all murders in Palestinian territories are "honor-killings".

Google "rape culture" and you get, on the first page, admonitions not to "exaggerate" rape culture at one end of the spectrum, and, at the other, a FORCE blog which notes that "mainstream media outlets like Playboy are still promoting an undergrad life-style that treats college-aged women like commodities." Rape culture definitely exists - it is not a figment of our imagination.

So why, after 20 years, do we still have so far to go?

Perhaps the answer can be found in some of the dreaded MRA websites.  According to these poor blokes, feminism is threatening their very manhood.  Some of the ridiculous comments these blokey blokes like to spout are captured very nicely by David Futrelle, writing as ManBoobz. Futrelle says he is "opposed to the so-called Men’s Rights Movement, a reactionary movement driven largely by misogyny and hatred of feminism." But is feminism really the issue here? Or is the issue the fact that parents – men and women - don’t educate their male children not to rape, not to be violent to women and girls, not to laugh at sexist jokes, not to cat-call at women and girls on the street?

Feminism is a red herring, used by MRAs to justify their dreadful treatment of women and girls.

Until the problem is addressed at the very core – from the moment of birth of a boy child - rape culture will continue to exist, aided by lack of education, religion (all denominations) and politics. We can but hope that it won't take another 20 years before we start to see some progress.

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Unexpected triggers

Some women get back on their feet after rape and/or sexual assault and grow from their experience.  Unfortunately, for many others, it isn't that easy.  As much as you want to call yourself a survivor, you still feel like a victim every time something triggers you.

That has happened far too often to me in the last year.  Despite counselling spanning quarter of my adult life, it seems to get harder instead of easier.  When I read about the horrific rape and abuse of Jyoti Singh Pandey in India last November, it triggered me worse than anything ever has.  Circumstances I could directly relate to - 5 men, an iron bar.  At Christmas I was on my own apart from my two dogs.  I sat on my bed with a packet of sleeping tablets and all I wanted to do was escape the pain.  The only thing that stopped me was the realisation that no-one would find my dogs for days, and I couldn't do that to them.  They saved me.

Yesterday I posted to an online group I belong to that I believe we are failing our women and girls by not giving them the resources and knowledge to risk assess the situations they may go into.  The sentiment is the same as my last blog post.  I truly believe that we are giving our girls a false sense of entitlement without giving them the knowledge to know when and how to use that entitlement, and thereby we are endangering them.  This is not victim blaming, and yet that is exactly how one commenter saw it.  I was told I was "part of the problem".

I fully understand that this person may not be aware of my history, although my website and blog have been posted to the group on a number of occasions.  Her comment was a trigger for me, and I have expended a lot of tears and anger and self doubt in the last few hours.  If I am victim blaming, then does that mean I am blaming myself for what happened to me?  I have spent so many years trying to get over that feeling, I don't need it thrown at me by someone who doesn't even know me.

The hardest thing with the internet is not being face to face with the people who drop these type of comments.  My goal, since last December, has been to try to make sure that no woman or girl ever has to endure the PTSD, emotional turmoil and related mental and physical health issues, lack of self esteem and feeling of aloneness I live with every day because of something that happened that shouldn't have.

I was not in a situation of war.  I was not a child abused by a family member or friend.  I was not an elderly woman attacked in my own home. I was not attacked by religious perverts.I was not trafficked or prostituted for sex.

Could I have avoided the situation I found myself in? Ultimately, with the ability to analyse the stupidity of the situation, yes I could have.

Did my attackers have the right to rape me?  Of course not! Rape is not okay, ever, under any circumstances.

So will I encourage other women and girls to be aware of their circumstances and to take appropriate steps to avoid putting themselves at risk?  You bloody bet I will.

If someone wants to call that "slut shaming" or "victim blaming", that's your call.  Just be very, very sure you know the background of the person you are saying it to, and their motivation for feeling the way they do.


Sunday 24 November 2013

"Zero Harm" and Rape Culture



I’m going to write a codicil for this blog post before I even start, because I know it is going to be a very unpopular topic.  Rape is never, has never been, and will never be “okay”.  That’s what is says on my website (www.itsokaytobeangry.com) and that’s what I truly believe.  You may disagree with what I am about to say, but don’t, DON’T, DO NOT make the mistake of thinking I condone rape or rape culture; nor am I victim blaming in any way, shape, form or format. This is a personal comment from a torn soul who believes we are letting our women and girls down in a very particular way.

Years ago, when I chose workplace health and safety as my career path, I did so in part because of my history.  Since I had never had justice after I was raped and assaulted, and never had someone speak up for me, I wanted to be that person in the workplace – someone who would push the employee’s barrow with management and ensure that workers went home uninjured at the end of each day.  I saw it as a parallel to safety from sexual violence, one that I could be and was passionate about.

Over the years I have witnessed bad attitudes from both sides.  Employers who will always blame the employee when an unsafe action is noted, and employees who say the employer never does enough and always places profit first.  There are rights and wrongs with both arguments, and again I see parallels with safety from sexual violence.

So much of the media attention now is on “rape culture”.  It exists.  There is no argument.  There will always be instances where a situation was entirely unavoidable by the woman and she suffered the consequences, perhaps lifelong. There is no argument that rape is a weapon of war. There is no argument that “gang” culture is pervasive amongst our teens and youth. There is no argument that domestic violence, sexual violence in the name of religion and sex trafficking are totally unacceptable. There is no argument that no-one has the right to touch your body without your express permission. 

Yet the general message we are giving our women and girls is “do what you like, wear what you like, act however you want, it’s your body.”  This is where I completely disagree. I believe that, by giving women and girls that message, we are failing them in a huge way by not equipping them with the ability to assess and manage risk.  

In a workplace, hazards are mitigated by an employer and an employee has a legal responsibility to act in a safe manner and follow workplace procedures such as safety boots, hard hats, safe work procedures, inductions, correct licences etc.  No-one would think twice about castigating someone for working on a high rise construction site in thongs and shorts without a harness.  That’s just dumb, right?

So why do we insist that women and girls should have an unfettered freedom to do whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want? We can’t blame the patriarchy every time violence happens.  We sometimes have to accept some responsibility for our own actions.  Including the fact that many women and girls want their freedom but don’t want the responsibility of educating themselves or their peers about what is and isn’t acceptable.

If we truly want to get rid of rape culture it is our responsibility – every single one of us, male and female – to call it out when we see it or hear it, to stomp on it, to work to change it.  And to accept responsibility that our own actions may, just may, put us in a hazardous situation when there is no “employer” to make it safe for us.  

I left workplace health and safety because I was totally dismayed at the pervading culture of “Zero Harm” which is predicated on the belief that a workplace can be made completely safe – this is a fallacy, there is no such thing in a world populated by humans.  Likewise, there is no such thing as “freedom” in a world populated by humans, and once again I see parallels between the “safety culture” and “rape culture”. Zero Harm advocates look at the world through rose coloured glasses, and so too do those who say rape culture can and should be easily dismantled. There is never a simple solution, but in both instances the discourse has to change before the results will change.

Why are we failing our women and girls by not equipping them with the life skills to make rational decisions about irrational risk situations? Rape is never, has never been, and will never be “okay”, but the simple fact is we live in an imperfect world.  You don’t tempt fate on a worksite, and you educate yourself about risk.  Why don’t you do the same when you step outside your employer’s gates and ensure our girls and young women are educated in risk awareness

Knowledge is power.

Sunday 17 November 2013

'The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.' - Gloria Steinem

I only acknowledged my truth reasonably recently, and it certainly did piss me off. I wish, so often, that I had confronted it many years ago, so that it doesn't drag me now to dark places where I don't want to be in the later years of my life. Instead I struggle with PTSD and memories and the knowledge that I didn't do anything to deserve what happened to me, but neither did I do anything, at the time, to help ensure it would never happen to others. That's often a serious issue for rape victims, especially young ones, but to tell or not to tell should never be the question - there should be no need for that question.

Now that I am older and have acknowledged my truth and the fact that I can definitely help and it's not too late, I have, on a small scale, become an activist and organiser and supporter. I hope, through my involvement, that I can spread the message that sexual violence against women and girls is NEVER okay. 

One Billion Rising is a worldwide campaign that calls on survivors of sexual violence to tell their stories, thereby helping others and working towards justice for all and the eradication of a discourse that allows rape culture to fester and spread. On 14 February 2013 the theme for One Billion Rising was Strike Dance Rise, and activists, dancers, women, men, ordinary people and extraordinary people from 207 countries around the world took part. A small but very dedicated group joined me in Queen Street Mall, Brisbane, for three flash mob performances of a dance written and choreographed especially for the 2013 event.  

In the past 12 months some horrendous stories have hit the headlines and gone viral on social media.  The list below is by no means exclusive:

  • the rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandy in India, the extremely slow action by the police to bring the perpetrators to justice and the defense lawyer victim blaming;
  • a young woman raped by members of a college football team in Steubenville, USA. This matter might have been swept under the carpet if it hadn't been pushed by the social media justice group "Anonymous";
  • the suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons in Canada who was raped whilst drunk; pictures of her rapists violating her were circulated on the internet and she was subjected to sever cyber bullying.  Rehtaeh was not afforded justice until after her death, and only then because of the efforts of "Anonymous" and her parents, Glen and Leah, to ensure that her death was not simply swept into the statistics pile by the police;
  • The rape and death of a 5 year old in India by two men just weeks after the kidnapping, torture and rape of another 5 year old, whose disappearance was not taken seriously by police;
  • Daisy Coleman of Maryville, USA, raped and then the subject of a Fox News interview where the rapist's defense attorney claimed she was at fault for being "rape-able";
  • a Swiss couple, cycling through India in March, were attacked by 8 men from a village in Datia district; the man was tied up while the men the gang raped his wife;
  • police in New Zealand under fire for inaction over the "Roast Busters" gang rapes when they didn't take the complaint of a 15 year old victim seriously;
  • a woman raped by a bouncer two years ago in Wellington, New Zealand, whose case only just made it to court, told by the defense lawyer that she "could have closed her legs".
In 2014 the theme for One Billion Rising is Rise for Justice. We want to reach much, much further than we did in 2013. We want the message to get out to as many people as possible - violence against women and girls in NOT okay, rape is NOT okay, justice must be seen to be done.

Please join us - RSVP to the Brisbane event on the One Billion Rising website, "Like" us on Facebook, learn the dance - it will still be a big part of our 2014 activities - and encourage your friends, employer, workmates, school, sports groups, community groups or anyone else you know to get involved.

For the violence to end, rape culture must end and justice must prevail.  The only way that is going to happen is if every single person understands the problem, becomes actively involved and Rises for Justice.

So yes, Gloria, I am not yet over "pissed off", but it's an anger that drives me to help ensure that others don't have to go through what I did, and what hundreds of thousands of other women and girls go through every day.  We WILL be set free!

Tuesday 29 October 2013

Yes Means Yes

I follow a Facebook page written by the mother of a Canadian teenager.  Rehtaeh Parsons was just 15 when she was raped by four youths who photographed their deeds and distributed the photos, which were subsequently sent out on the internet.  Rehtaeh suffered through two years of torment, abuse, harassment and bullying, victim blaming and shaming.  She moved towns, hospitalised herself on suicide watch, and eventually moved back to her home town only to have the event still thrown at her.  The "justice" system was a farce. 

On 4 April 2013 Rehtaeh hung herself.  On 7 April her life support was turned off.

Rehtaeh is by no means the only teenager who goes through this incredible torment, but she is one of a growing number whose lives end tragically, because of the insidious nature of the internet and the overwhelming acceptance of rape culture in our society.

Until very recently, rape crisis organisations predominantly used the slogan "No means no".  That slogan is still in used extremely valid, but following some highly publicised recent rape cases, the slogan has moved.  No longer can a male say that his victim didn't object because she didn't say no.  "Yes means yes" recognises that, often, women are not in any position to say no.  Date rape drugs have seen to that.  Spiked drinks, excessive alcohol, peer pressure.  

Nothing... not ONE thing... gives a male the right to have sexual intercourse with or sexually interfere with a female unless she has given informed consent which is not subsequently withdrawn.

It doesn't matter what she wears.
It doesn't matter if she is drunk or drugged.
It doesn't matter if he thinks she gave him the come on.
It doesn't matter if his friends made a bet with him.
It doesn't even matter if she said yes, but then changed her mind.  

Your arousal is not her concern.
Your frustration is not her concern.
Her safety IS your concern.

This year's Reclaim the Night event in Brisbane focused on rape culture.  It is far too easy, still, in our society, to just accept the discourse that perpetuates rape culture.  Do you laugh at sexist jokes, or do you call the tellers out on them? Do you shake your head when you hear of another rape or do you get angry and take action? Have you stood with sexual violence survivors and said "Enough!"? Have you opened your mouth, even once, to affirm your opposition to rape culture?  If not, why not?  Silence is tacit acceptance.

And that is why and how rape culture perpetuates. It's not a hard fight.  It's a just fight, an honest one, one that can be easily won simply by calling it out wherever and whenever you see it, and reminding people that it's not okay.

And that only YES means yes.

Monday 19 August 2013

The Bonds of Anger

"Anger, especially when springing from a desire for freedom, is a powerful and bonding force." - Julia Baird, 2013 

The year is going so fast, and there is still so much that makes me angry day after day. I winced in anger at every disgusting abuse that was heaped on our first female Prime Minister. I read with anger of the issues facing women in Texas whose reproductive rights are being stomped on. I empathised in anger with the mother of a teenage girl whose gang rape was spread around social media to the extent that she eventually felt suicide was her only release from her pain. I suffer in silent anger and sadness with every woman or girl whose story of rape, sex trafficking or acid attack appears in my newsfeed. 

I don't watch mainstream TV. I don't need to see the glossy face of a world I know doesn't really exist, not when I see the slimy underbelly of the real world every day through the internet and social media. I am sick of hearing those who claim misogyny and patriarchy don't exist. YES, they DO. 

When a woman who stands up for having a woman appear on a stamp is abused and threatened with rape and murder, misogyny exists. That happened in the UK. 

When a woman who openly declares support for an event that will highlight the fact that women can't walk the streets at night because it is too dangerous is threatened with rape and physical brutality, misogyny exists. That happened in Townsville to one of the Reclaim the Night organisers. 

When a woman is told she should have a chaperone after midnight "for her own safety", patriarchy exists. That statement came from a well known (male) DJ on a Brisbane commercial station after Jill Meagher was murdered. 

When a male politician says that a woman politician stands out because she has "sex appeal", patriarchy exists. That was our dearly beloved (sic) Tony Abbott expressing Fiona Scott's credentials as a politician. Well sorry to say Mr Abbott, but if "sex appeal" is a requirement, you lose. Majorly. 

In February 2013 the Workplace Gender Equality Agency provided statistics that showed the gender pay gap is still unacceptably wide, at 17.6% as at November 2012. The Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 addresses the issue, but no positive results are yet being reported. 

Worldwide, rape and abuse is reported at a never-before-seen rate. Social media highlights stories that the MSM simply won't touch. The statistics are horrifying and so negative. 

Yet there are positives. The harder society makes it for women to be truly equal, the more women stand together and fight. I am privileged to have met some wonderful women who stand up every day for other women. The women of the Brisbane Feminist Collective, whether radical, liberal or otherwise. The women of the Reclaim the Night collective, voices for many who can't, often for situational reasons, speak up for themselves. The many women standing up against domestic violence. The women who shared the 2013 V-Day platforms of One Billion Rising and Vagina Monologues. The organisers of TEDxSouthBankWomen, providing advocacy for women to share their ideas to change the world. And many, many more. 

Anne Summers writes of contemporary issues in her website "The Looking Glass". The Griffith Review (Edition 40), Destroy the Joint, Collective Shout, Stop the Worldwide War on Girls, V-Day - all organisations spreading the anger - women are not toys, women are not chattels, women ARE equal! 

Misogyny and patriarchy may be alive and flourishing in 2013 Australia, but it has no place in enlightened society. Anger is a tool, a resource, that we can share to combat them. No one should have to live with threats of rape. No one should ever be told her worth is based solely on her reproductive capabilities. No one should believe that women are not equal in every regard to men. 

And if you believe they aren't, we'd be happy to educate you.