A lot has
been swirling through my mind this week and I’ve been going back and forth
about whether or not to write this post. I’m still not 100% sure if it is the
right decision to put all of this down in words and essentially out there for
the world to see, but if it helps even one person understand that sexual
misconduct can happen to anyone and why it can be so hard for people to report
it, then maybe putting it all down will be worth it.
I am glad
that individuals of all genders, and some in very public positions, are coming
forward to report sexual harassment and assault that they have survived at the
hands of some pretty horrible people who clearly have used their positions of
power for evil rather than good, but the fact that we live in a society where
even with this rape culture exists at such a terrifying rate and when reports
like this come out, there are people who are so quick to victim blame makes me
sick. I wrote something on my facebook a couple months ago about the upcoming
arrival of my first child who will be a privileged white male, and you better
damn well believe that I will do everything in my power to raise him to respect
others and understand what consent is, how his privilege plays a part in
consent, and that he must always have consent. If he wants to hug another child
when growing up, you better believe he is going to know you ask permission to
hug first. People may think I’m a crazy mom, but I just really want him to
understand and do the right thing.
Almost 9
years ago I started working at my first “real” full time job in higher
education. I was so excited to be working full time, to have a staff of my own,
and to have an incredible group of colleagues that I would get to work with and
learn from. I thought that I was walking into a great environment where I would
be truly supported and would be able to develop skills that would help me long
term in my career. While some of this did happen, there were a few other not so
great things that I got to experience. I should also mention that at the time I
started this position, I was only 22 years old which meant I was still a little
naïve about how the world worked- especially the working world. For my higher
ed friends, I should also note that this occurred in 2009 prior to the release
of the now (unfortunately) retracted 2011 OCR Dear Colleague Letter.
Within my
first three months of working in my position, I (along with a couple other
women in the department) were experiencing blatant sexual harassment from a
male colleague. I kept quiet about what was going on for a while because I
really didn’t know what to do and didn’t want to cause any trouble. Things got
to the point though where if I was even in the same room as this individual I
was having internal panic attacks, couldn’t focus, and just needed to get away
as quickly as possible. My ability to work was being impacted on a daily basis
and I can’t count the number of times I cried during the day because of the
stress the work environment and the harassment that I was enduring. When I
finally did decide to report the behavior I was lucky to have an understanding
and supportive supervisor who was there for me and able to help me navigate
what to do. Unfortunately, when I reported the situation to our department’s
human resources staff and the supervisor of my colleague I was told that I
either needed to just let it go or I needed to “talk it out” with my colleague.
The thought of having to sit down and mediate the harassment with the person
who was causing me so much anxiety was absolutely terrifying and at 22 I didn’t
feel as though I would be able to do that. I expected my HR department to
believe me and to take appropriate employment action. I didn’t expect to be
told to “let it go” nor did I expect to be grilled about what I could have
possibly done to have caused the behavior from my colleague, because in their
mind I must have encouraged him to make the comments he was making. I felt as
though everything was my fault and that I had done something wrong by reporting
the behavior and how it was making me feel in the work environment. I had to
endure another month of working with the colleague before he was finally either
terminated or resigned, for of all things, not appropriately handling a reported
sexual assault on campus. And when he did leave, there were people in the
department who made me feel it was my fault he was gone because I had reported
his harassing, inappropriate behavior.
Fast forward
to 2013. I’m older and I’ve worked in higher education long enough to have
developed a pretty tough shell. This time I’m working somewhere else and have
an experience where a highly intoxicated student verbally abuses me for
multiple hours. Not only does this student verbally abuse me, but in part of
what he says to me, he makes it very clear that when we arrive at a certain
location that he will have arranged for his friends to meet us there so that
they can sexually assault me. As soon as I am able to leave the student, I
immediately submit a report about the situation. The report has no emotion to
it, rather it is me just providing the facts of the encounter. I have a tough
shell, but I am absolutely crumbling apart. I’m really lucky in this case that
I have colleagues who, as soon as they find out what happened, come to get me
to take care of me. Despite the very clear report, through an appeal the
student is able to stay, and I have to spend the next month and a half seeing
this individual on an almost daily basis. And when we get to the place where he
told me his friends would be to assault me, I spend six days in totally fear
that at any moment something terrible is going to happen to me. I’m incredibly
lucky that it didn’t but that fear was absolutely crippling and having to see the
individual so often had me replaying the situation over and over. I was lucky
to have access to counseling services which was helpful in processing through
everything and I had a great support system in my coworkers and supervisors.
If I had to
count how many people know about these two experiences, I would say in total
that maybe 15 people in my life know. I honestly don’t know if I ever told my
family, though I’m pretty sure my sister knows about the 2013 incident. The
first situation, probably only 5 people have any idea about it and what I went
through. Even though my situations are nothing in comparison with what others
have experienced, they make me understand why reporting can be so difficult.
Lots of times people won’t believe you or they will question what you must have
done for something to happen to you. Or, you do report, people believe you, but
the consequences for the person who hurt you are so small that you are re-victimized
on a regular basis.
There has to
be a solution to this awful culture that we have established. There has to be a
way to hold people, especially those abusing their power, accountable for their
actions. There has to be a way for survivors of any type of sexual misconduct
to feel comfortable coming forward. We have to do something, we can’t stay
silent anymore.
