Want to End Sexual Harassment & Assault? Here's How to Start.

“I think it’s really important that people understand that if you’re genuinely engaged and recovering from human rights abuses, you have to commit to truth-telling first. You can’t jump to reconciliation. You can’t jump to reparation or restoration until you tell the truth. Until you know the nature of the injuries, you can’t actually speak to the kind of remedies that are going to be necessary.”
— Bryan Stevenson

When I read this quote, I see it as a call for all people to examine the problems we collectively face against human rights injustices, whether we personally experience them or not. This means we examine the ways racism, sexism, homophobia, and other injustices are perpetuated within our culture and in what ways we each embody and even empower them. 

Survivors of injustices, however, might interpret this quote differently, being on the other side of the injustice. They might see it as an invitation to examine their traumatic experience and then speak about it, which can create space for healing. As my friend Melissa Brewer puts it, “we cannot heal and create resolution until we are honest about our experiences.”    

Regardless, we have a lot of work to do before we jump to solutions. Before we attempt to fix these cultural problems that affect the world and thus, the dance communities in which we participate, it is important that we start listening to understand instead of listening to respond.

Yet, instead of sitting with the discomfort of what we’ve read and trying to understand it, we rush to social media the instant we hear something to voice our concern about what we think should happen and then we pat our hands dry of the problem. I’ve denounced this behavior and thus, I’m a good person. Men, particularly, do this and claim to be allies, not truly understanding what victims go through. Since men are less often the victims of sexual harassment or assault, they are often less aware, too. Some of these unaware individuals claim sexual harassment and assault are not even real problems. “The women I know aren’t afraid to speak up for themselves,” they say. “These things aren’t happening. I’ve never seen it!” Maybe it’s because their definitions of assault and harassment are different than ours (some behaviors like catcalling, for example, have been normalized and thus, observers can feel numb to their effects), or maybe, just maybe, they choose not to see. Others excuse the assault by finding reasons to engage in Victim Blaming and Victim Shaming. “She was asking for it, looking like that.” “She should have known better than to…” (Pro tip: stop reinforcing rape culture by justifying it!) 

To any of us who have experienced the crippling reality of sexual harassment or assault, these opinions are infuriating because they’ve shown us very quickly that the person that should be listening is totally unwilling to do so. Their mind is made up. They were judge and jury without even asking for evidence. It is reminiscent of the 15th-century adage “a maid should be seen and not heard.” Seeing this response reinforced constantly throughout our lives often leads us to stay quiet altogether when it happens. If you’re not going to listen, and you might even run me through the mud for speaking up, WHY should I expose my most vulnerable and horrifying memories at all? 

Too often silence is not the elephant in the room - it is the invisibility cloak that leads us to believe there is no problem at all. In a culture where victims of sexual harassment and assault are often harassed further for speaking their truth, silence is safer than justice. 

Fact: While the rate varies depending on the source, anywhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 5 women will have been raped (completed or attempted) in their lifetime. 3% of men will be raped, too. And 21% of trans, genderqueer, and non-conforming people will be sexually assaulted. (https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence)

The clear implication of this statistic is that you know people who have been assaulted. They just haven’t told you about it. It’s a painful statistic, but it’s one we’re all going to need you to digest.

This is precisely why we need to start listening to survivors. Hold back your judgments. Hold back your doubts. Create a safe space for the truth to be spoken and then just LISTEN.

As much as we might like to think that sexual harassment and assault result from an individual’s lack of moral goodness, male-dominated gender roles are actually culturally reinforced throughout the world. While nature might make men often larger and stronger than women, allowing them to physically dominate with ease, it is culture that nurtures this ideal through psychological means. Not only does this include the most harmless customs, such as women taking on their husband’s last name, but it can also be seen in small, yet uncomfortable gestures such as when a man leans over a woman to talk to her, invading her space (and sense of safety) or making public comments on a woman’s attractive body. For example, a friend of mine was recently told, “turn around for me, you have a nice a**” while mowing a customer’s lawn. The cultural normality of this problem means we’re all going to have to face this to improve our culture over time. This is a group project, ya’ll.

It’s important to understand the driving forces of abusers are dominance and self-gratification. It’s about the power and humiliation that can come with their behaviors. Though not every act of this search for dominance is violent, it can be very subliminal, yet have long-lasting effects on the victims. Gaslighting and emotional abuse, for example, can be very damaging to survivors, as they may be taught to distrust their own eyes and ears. This is why I refer to both sexual harassment and sexual assault together throughout this article.

The power dynamic is so strong that some men will create opportunities to harass women who threaten their sense of power and achievement. Perhaps this harassment is their way to remind women that their place is to please men and nothing more. In one study, men were sexually inappropriate with women who outperformed them in mock interviews. (qtd. in Psychology Today) This is worse than just being a sore loser. 

I wonder if they even realize what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. How much self-awareness do these individuals have? My gut says none of these men would consider themselves abusers. They probably think they’re just putting those b*tches in their place. This, obviously, is a dangerous mindset. If we, as a society, can’t recognize the problem within ourselves, we’ll definitely never be able to solve the problem at all. 

Can we all take a moment to reflect on our own behaviors to see how we may have reinforced oppressive gender roles, rape culture, or a culture of silence? 

I, personally, have experienced this power-seeking on many occasions. I did not understand the desire for power at the time; I only understood how profoundly uncomfortable, and sometimes scared, I was made to feel. But I never did anything about them. I didn’t even really tell people about most of them. Instead, I closed up to people and I even sometimes blocked out the memories entirely to feel more safe. I’ve learned this is called dissociation and it’s a survival instinct. But after reaching a tipping point this winter, I wrote a series of 12 blogs sharing a selection of my experiences with the world. I entitled them Profiles of Abusers and outlined the lessons that can be learned from each experience. Reflecting back on those lessons, power over me was the clear motivator. 

It took a decade before I could share some of these stories with more than a few people.  Writing out the first story, in fact, made me feel shaky and scared all over again, even though almost 10 years had passed since and I was a continent away from where it happened. Telling our scariest stories often means reliving them. As my friend Melissa told me, “trauma isn’t the event, it’s the damage done by the event, including the retelling.” 

What I learned from sharing my stories is nearly every woman I know has a similar one. Some women publicly shared their stories as comments on my original social media posts, but most women reached out privately to express their support for my writing, saying they weren’t yet strong enough to reveal their own publicly. If you needed further proof that 1 in 5 women have been sexually assaulted, here it is. 

Polite reminder: We can’t make someone speak about their trauma if they are not ready to do so. What we can do is create a safe space for them to share if and when they’re ready. If you’re asking “How can I be a listener when so many survivors are still unwilling to share their experiences?,” you can start by listening to the stories that have already been told.  I will link to various stories and other resources below that you can use.

Listening is a fundamental piece of understanding and is a prerequisite to creating solutions. Until we understand the underlying problems, our solutions will be ineffective. There will be a time to create committees and teams dedicated to safety, to implement policies and agreements, and more. But first, just listen.

Special thanks go out to Melissa Brewer who is a passionate advocate and has supported me in learning more about sexual assault and harassment this year, crafted the code of conduct and agreement documents for For the Love of Bachata, and graciously agreed to look over this piece, adding perspective and wisdom to the understanding of trauma.  (If you would like Melissa to create a Code of Conduct for your event or classes, you can email her at: melissa.r.brewer@gmail.com.)