My brother asked me this question several weeks ago when I posted a great article by Anna Holmes of Jezebel about Charlie Sheen and a society that seems to give him a free ride, despite his history of violence toward women. I hesitated to answer him, but I am not sure why. After helping organize Sexual Assault Awareness Months activities for two years and completing the 50-hour training for YWCA sexual assault hotline volunteers, I should be able to speak from one guy to another about what to do, right?
Ironically, as a result of my training and experiences, sharing my own views on exactly what to do is the first thing I learned not to do. And, it is where I would start an explanation of what being an ally in the movement to end sexual assault means.
I am a white, male, heterosexual, college graduate—to be frank. A lot of folks with my pedigree have "known" what to do before with disastrous results for lots of people. However, I am not exactly self-loathing, nor would I encourage others to be. Nonetheless, my identity is part of the baggage I bring and it impacts how I can be involved in this movement.
In the eyes of many, I come from a position of power (maybe not in every particular instance, but generally speaking) and my interactions are charged for this reason. Luckily, there were some amazing women in my life who pointed this out to me and encouraged me to develop the first principle I needed to learn and continue to be taught—listening.
And not just sitting idly by and listening but respectfully questioning and probing. I had to admit to myself that I might have some great ideas for how to raise awareness and help end sexual assault but those ideas needed to be filtered through thoughtful conversation with women (and all survivors). They might not have the answers either, but none of my "answers" mattered if they couldn't be distilled through the lens of those whom they matter to most.
To do that also meant being engagingly disengaged. Starting from the second word, disengaged, I have had to continually realize that MY ideas are simply my ideas. I bring a perspective, a needed perspective, but simply another life narrative, that again, has to initially, be understood by survivors to be relevant and effective. "My ideas" are my unique voice. Yet, to even call them my ideas, risks over-taking the conversation and reproducing that power difference described above. My ideas are expressed through my life narrative, which is expressed through the questions I ask, the listening I do and eventually the action I take as a result of that conversation.
There are millions of people who have survived sexual assault and many of them are people you probably know. To realize that a huge number of women are survivors of sexual violence means that sexual assault in our society is pervasive. And that means the explanation for its cause cannot simply be a couple of isolated "deranged" guys like Charlie Sheen, but something just as pervasive—the culture itself.
To be truly engaged to the point where one can be an ally is to first take seriously the magnitude of the problem. It is to challenge the culture itself, a culture founded on the privileges of a guy like me that has resulted in a mutated and dangerous understanding of sexuality.
This post could drag on for a long time, challenging all the additional truths and lies of rape culture but it is meant to be about being an ally. And as I stated above, to be engaged is to listen and question own one's role as an ally in the movement, which means seeking out the answers and listening… a lot.
So what is my simple answer to my brother's question? Take rape culture and sexual assault seriously. If you really and truly do that, listening and respectfully engaging with the woman and survivors in your life and trying to understand this complex issue, then what to do will become evident.
On the frontline,
Brett
YWCA Sexual Violence Volunteer
And P.S. Thanks to all the women that encouraged me to write this post and helped inform its content.
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