Anyone who owns a television, radio or internet knows there has been a great deal of discussion about sexual assault and the #METOO movement lately. It is sad in the society in which we live this remains an issue up for debate. Truthfully, there are thousands upon thousands of males who have never been inappropriate with a female in any way. By the same token, I strongly suspect it is nigh unto impossible to find a female who has never been harassed, assaulted or raped. Minimally most females have been harassed on more than one occasion. Further, the majority of those women have never told their stories to anyone and most probably never will.
The reasons behind the silence about these violations are varied. To someone who has NEVER been violated, they often sound like excuses, irresponsibility, exaggerations, lies, or all the above. What is often overlooked is there is something that happens inside an individual when they are forced to live in a culture of frequent harassment, or if they have experienced assault or rape. It is something that cannot be verbalized easily and is hard to explain. In a very rudimentary way, a person who has experienced assault or rape or who has been exposed to repeated harassment, views the world through a different lens than people who have not had those experiences.
A profound illustration of this is an exercise my friend Ellin Jimmerson shared from the book The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help by Jackson Katz. In his 2006 book, Katz describes the exercise …
“I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other.
Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they’ve been asked a trick question. The silence gives way to a smattering of nervous laughter. Occasionally, a young a guy will raise his hand and say, ‘I stay out of prison.’ This is typically followed by another moment of laughter, before someone finally raises his hand and soberly states, ‘Nothing. I don’t think about it.’
Then I ask the women the same question. What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Women throughout the audience immediately start raising their hands. As the men sit in stunned silence, the women recount safety precautions they take as part of their daily routine.
Hold my keys as a potential weapon. Look in the back seat of the car before getting in. Carry a cell phone. Don’t go jogging at night. Lock all the windows when I sleep, even on hot summer nights. Be careful not to drink too much. Don’t put my drink down and come back to it; make sure I see it being poured. Own a big dog. Carry Mace or pepper spray. Have an unlisted phone number. Have a man’s voice on my answering machine. Park in well-lit areas. Don’t use parking garages. Don’t get on elevators with only one man, or with a group of men. Vary my route home from work. Watch what I wear. Don’t use highway rest areas. Use a home alarm system. Don’t wear headphones when jogging. Avoid forests or wooded areas, even in the daytime. Don’t take a first-floor apartment. Go out in groups. Own a firearm. Meet men on first dates in public places. Make sure to have a car or cab fare. Don’t make eye contact with men on the street. Make assertive eye contact with men on the street.”
As a female, I daily find myself doing some of these things, as well as other precautions not listed. I have been harassed more times than I can remember. I have been assaulted by 5 different males. Two were rank strangers, one was a brother of a childhood friend, one was a boss and last but not least a family member. Two of the five violations, I have never mentioned to anyone. And I have not mentioned all 5 violations to any one person. The fact that one dates back 42 years, and has remained a secret, in no way diminishes the violation or the mental and emotional consequences it forced upon me.
It is not unusual for an adult male to report sexual abuse by a priest several decades after it happens and people are rightly enraged. Yet a woman can report sexual abuse by a male decades after it happens and people are suspicious. Why? Have females fraudulently accused males of assaulting them? Unfortunately, yes. While those cases are numerically low, they have caused great damage to the accused and in many cases have been widely publicized by the media. These instances are important and should not be minimized. But at the same time they should not be given undue weight as to undermine the true victims.
The National Sexual Violence Resource Center estimates somewhere between 2% and 10% of reported assaults are either false or baseless reports. A false report is a report of a crime which is investigated and found to have never occurred. A baseless report is a report in which after investigation is determined the incident does not rise to the level of a crime, but is truthful. Yet with these reports counted against the total, a staggering 90% to 98% of assaults are reported by true victims.
All reports of harassment, assault or rape should not only be heard, but taken seriously. Once heard, they should be investigated by a non-biased, independent third-party. If the violation is founded, then the perpetrator should face the consequences. If unfounded the reporting person should face the consequences. However, in all circumstances the alleged victim should be given the dignity of being heard and the perpetrator should be given the dignity of presumed innocence pending investigation; but an investigation is absolutely necessary.
Sexual safety is not a priority in our culture. It is doubtful it will become the priority it needs to be until men see sexual safety as a basic human right. It is time for boys to be held accountable for “just being boys” by their male peers. It is time for males to call out other males for making inappropriate jokes and comments. It is time for men, real men, to step up and see the generational patriarchy for what it is … a way of life that systematically decreases the value of women. But for any of this to become a reality, men are going to have to share the power they were born with by essence of their biological sex, with the women in their lives.