Apr

26

Denim Day – Global Solidarity

Filed Under Guest Post, Motivating Moments, Powerful Women, Uncategorized | By Jodi Tidwell | Leave a Comment

Most girls are immediately trusting of others—especially those in authority. Usually, this is the right choice. Usually, people are not bad, are not violent and are not rapists. Unfortunately, the definition of usually is “not always”.
For one teenage girl in Italy, her trust in others was ruined by her 45-year-old driving instructor. During her very first driving lesson he asked the young woman to drive further and further from her town into the country. I imagine she might have begun to feel nervous, but she trusted this man, he was her driving instructor, an authority figure, and her parent s trusted him. Why would she question him?
Once out of town he asked her to pull over into a wooded area. He threatened to kill her and her family as he forced one of her legs out of her jeans and brutally raped her.
She was a smart young woman, and she trusted her parents and the police to do the right thing—and they did. They supported her, arrested the man; he was convicted of rape and sentenced to prison.
Eventually, through the appeals process, his lawyers came up with the often used defense that it was consensual sex. She was dressed provocatively, she was driving the car herself…and because her jeans were tight she had to help him remove them.
The case made its way through the system to the Italian Supreme Court where it was finally overturned. The chief justice said, “Since the victim wore very, very tight jeans; she had to help him remove them, and by removing the jeans, it was no longer rape but consensual sex.”
Within hours of the verdict, women of the Italian Parliament rushed home to change into jeans in protest, standing in support of this girl, and all girls and women who are blamed every day for something someone else did to them.

In 1999, Peace Over Violence, an anti-violence organization in Las Angeles, began the Denim Day campaign to show a unified front in support of survivors. Anti-violence and sexual assault centers across the United States and the World have followed suit. In 2008, SafePlace brought the campaign to Austin. Other organizations, including TAASA have joined in the movement.
Now, when someone hears the story behind Denim Day, they are outraged. They tell friends and co-workers and want to sign up immediately to support survivors and to show their outrage that anyone –women, girls, boys and men– are ever to blame for an assault against them.
The blame hasn’t ended. The brutal gang rape of the 11-year-old girl in Cleveland, Texas brings this point home. She was a little girl, and she didn’t know not to trust.

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Apr

26

Roundtable on Sexual Violence report

Filed Under Resource | By   | Leave a Comment

On Oct. 27 of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women, the White House Council on Women and Girls, and Lynn Rosenthal, White House Advisor on Violence Against Women hosted a Roundtable on Sexual Violence. Here’s a brief excerpt from the report:

Roundtable participants identified numerous barriers to advancing the issue of sexual violence.
Key barriers they described included:

  • The persistence of “rape myths” and misconceptions about sexual violence, which run counter to the majority of victims’ experiences, and make it all the more challenging for survivors to disclose their victimization to anyone, from law enforcement and healthcare professionals to family and friends;
  • Relentless focus on victim behavior and characteristics—and lack of attention to offenders—which perpetuate victim-blaming attitudes and help offenders evade sanctions;
  • Lack of community engagement, which inhibits public discourse on the issue;
  • Failure to account for the historical and current contexts of sexual violence as a tool of subjugation and colonization, in particular as this relates to communities of color;
  • The discomfort of professionals and the general public with issues of child sexual abuse and incest, which make it even more difficult for survivors to disclose, attain justice, and seek support;
  • Victims’ reluctance to report their assaults, given that when victims do disclose, they often face skepticism, blame, and further humiliation from professionals, families, and friends, amounting to what many survivors consider a “second victimization”;
  • Lack of effective training and education on sexual violence, both for first responders and for communities at large; and
  • A dearth of relevant research on sexual violence, and the need for better research and data collection to inform the work of practitioners and policymakers.

You can read the full report here.

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Apr

23

SlutWalk Dallas

Filed Under Powerful Women, Vlog | By   | 3 Comments

I did a very quick tweet/Facebook post earlier today from SlutWalk Dallas, which raised the question what is a slutwalk? In short, it’s an event to bring awareness to the community that a sexual assault victim is never to blame for being violated. The Huffington Post reported that since the first one in Toronto earlier this month, the event is sweeping the nation. Yay! The next one in Texas (that I know of at the time of this blog) is scheduled for June 4 in Austin.

Here’s a quick chat with SlutWalk Dallas organizer, Elizabeth Webb about the event:

If you’d like to see footage from the walk itself, here is the story that channel 33 ran tonight.

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Apr

21

Griffin and Meredith Perry host TAASA luncheon event

Filed Under Announcement, Motivating Moments, Vlog | By Rose Luna | Leave a Comment

Griffin and Meredith Perry hosted a luncheon event highlighting the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month at The Belo Mansion in Dallas, TX.  The event honored the W.W. Caruth, Jr. Foundation and featured guest speaker Marcus Luttrell.  Hear Griffin’s thoughts on the importance of TAASA and local rape crisis centers. 

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Apr

18

TAASA’s Diversity Task Force receives kudos from Waco center

Filed Under Vlog | By Rose Luna | Leave a Comment

Interim Executive Director Barbara Wright from the Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children in Waco, Texas, shares her thoughts on the work of TAASA’s Diversity Task Force. How has the work of TAASA’s Diversity Task Force affected your organization?

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Apr

13

New Campaign Informs Texans about Important Laws for Sexual Assault Survivors

Filed Under Announcement | By   | 1 Comment

A statewide public awareness campaign officially began this past Monday with the launch of a website dedicated solely to information about two laws passed during the 81st legislative session.

The first law provides important options for someone sexually assaulted in a rental property where they live. Texas Property Code 92.0161 allows a victim of sexual assault to break a lease at an apartment or another rental property without having to pay financial penalties such as future rent or any fees for ending the lease early.

“This is an important law that protects renters from what can be an unsafe situation,” said TAASA Executive Director Annette Burrhus-Clay. “By at least having the option to break a lease and move out, it makes it possible to begin the process of healing – emotionally, mentally and physically.”

According to the law, a lease can be broken with 30 days notice and written documentation that the assault happened at the rental property within the last six months before breaking the lease. Acceptable forms of documentation include a protective order issued by a court, or paperwork showing that the renter had medical treatment or mental health treatment from a licensed provider, or received services at a rape crisis center. A police report is not required and the tenant can move out as soon as he or she gives notice.

The second law has to do with sexual assault exams. A sexual assault examination (also called a medical forensic exam) is a procedure conducted by a medical professional to treat and diagnose a victim of sexual assault while also collecting evidence of the crime.

Texas law now states that if a sexual assault victim is not ready to get police involved, she or he still has the option to have a sexual assault examination conducted.

“It’s called a ‘non-report sexual assault exam,’” Burrhus-Clay said. “And that means medical treatment can be given and important evidence can be collected, except the survivor can choose to involve police later, or even not at all.”

Additionally, there is no law requiring medical facilities to report sexual assaults of adults to law enforcement, so the decision to report is entirely the survivor’s. This important change in the law balances the needs of the victim and the criminal justice system by allowing survivors to preserve important evidence and still take the time they need to decide whether to report.

Combined, these two laws extend the rights of sexual assault victims while giving them options to take control of the situation.

“If you or somebody you love has been sexually assaulted, take the time to learn more about your rights,” Burrhus-Clay said. “Knowing about these two laws can make a real difference when it comes to empowering yourself or someone you love.”

Billboards are up in El Paso, Laredo, Amarillo, Brownsville and San Angelo. Radio spots began today in Austin (The Beat 102.3); Houston (Hot 95.7 and Mega 101); Dallas (103.7 Lite and Mega 107.5) and San Antonio (The New 94.1 and La Ley 95.7). Additionally, a print ad will appear in 248 community newspapers across the state.

Visit www.HopeLaws.org for more information.

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Apr

1

Men’s Contribution to Preventing Sexual Violence Against Women

Filed Under Guest Post | By Emiliano Diaz de Leon | Leave a Comment

Editor’s Note: This is a collective opinion piece about the gang rape of the 11 year-old girl in Cleveland, Texas.  We are sharing it on their behalf and encourage you to do the same.

In the struggle to stop rape and all forms of men’s violence against women, it is time for men to leave the sidelines and get in the game. One important step we can take is to raise our voices and insist that the spotlight in media coverage of rape turns away from a fixation on victims and their behavior and instead focuses on abusive men and boys – and the culture that produces and makes excuses for them.  We make this demand not only as concerned citizens and responsible members of our communities – but as men from virtually every cultural/racial/ethnic/religious background.

There is some progress to report, albeit progress in response to yet another depressing reminder of how far we still have to come.  Consider this: reaction to the victim-blaming in a recent New York Times story about a brutal gang rape in East Texas has been fast and furious.  Over the past several weeks, columnists, bloggers, victim advocates and anti-rape activists – women and men – have criticized the March 8 Times story for the way its use of selective quotes suggested that an 11-year-old girl in effect contributed to the assault against her by “wearing make-up and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her twenties.”  In addition, critics have responded to the perception conveyed in the article that among the residents of Cleveland, Texas there is greater concern for the nineteen men and boys facing allegations of rape than for the young girl.

The Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane agreed with much of the criticism of the piece: “My assessment,” he wrote just a few days later, “is that the outrage is understandable. The story dealt with a hideous crime but addressed concerns about the ruined lives of the perpetrators without acknowledging the obvious: concern for the victim.” (The Times front page follow-up story on March 28 did a lot better, offering an extended portrait of the girl, whom they described as having been “an honor roll student, brimming with enthusiasm.”)

This tragic case will provide lessons for future news writing classes and journalistic ethics seminars. Clearly, news operations need guidance about how to cover sex crimes without perpetuating misogynous cultural attitudes.

But for those of us who work to end men’s violence against women, this incident is less about the specific details of one horrific act of rape in a distressed community in Texas, and more about the broader themes of power,  privilege, misogyny, class and race that the act itself–and the coverage it generated – so poignantly exemplify.

We have to ask some difficult questions: why would a group of men and boys sexually violate a vulnerable 11-year-old girl?  What does this say not only about them or the small community where they live, but about the society – our society – that raised them?  What are we teaching men and boys about how to treat girls? Read more

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