Sexual assault is a devastating experience, and one organization is determined to give back some of the dignity that has been so unfairly stolen away.

“I stood there examining my body beneath the stream of water and decided, I don’t want my body anymore. I was terrified of it. I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else.” This profound quote in the New York Post was an excerpt from a sexual assault survivor’s handwritten testimony during the recent and highly publicized trial of Stanford University student, Brock Turner. Turner was eventually convicted of rape, but only sentenced to six months in jail and three years’ probation.

With victim blaming still running rampant, slews of rape kits going untested, and more rapists being slapped on the wrist with sentences so light they’re almost nonexistent, survivors of sexual assault need all the help they can get. But after such life-altering experiences, it can be difficult to do something as simple as look in the mirror without feeling ashamed, much less come forward against one’s attacker. Especially so when the process typically starts with succumbing to an oftentimes invasive rape kit that has the propensity to leave survivors feeling that much more vulnerable and violated.

Some victims have the option of being slightly more prepared before going to a hospital or health facility for a rape kit. However, the survivor from the Turner case, like so many others, reportedly woke up in the hospital after her attack. For the victims who aren’t able to make prior preparations, or for the many who aren’t aware of rape kit proceedings, RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) describes the hours long exam as one which may include genital swabs, blood samples, and photographs of private areas, often ending with the victim’s clothing being confiscated in order to be examined for traces of the perpetrator’s DNA.

For those of you interested in learning more, there’s a detailed, first-hand account of one woman’s rape examination experience here, but I would proceed with caution for its potentially distressing content.

This careful and thorough collection process isn’t ideal, but is designed to preserve potential evidence that may be admissible in legal proceedings. And although patients are able to put a stop to the rape kit at any point in time, unlike the woman in the first-hand account was led to believe, it doesn’t make the process any easier. Unfortunately in the cases for some survivors, this could mean that their only option after having been sexually assaulted and subjected to a rape kit is to leave the medical facility dressed in a hospital-issued paper gown.

After facing scrutiny from every angle, this flimsy, dignity-stealing sheet of nothing can degrade survivors of sexual assault – women, men, and children – even further. However, The Grateful Garment Project, a non-profit organization based in San Jose, Calif., has made it the group’s mission to “ensure that every victim of a sexual crime who crosses the threshold of a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) facility or who seeks medical attention and/or law enforcement involvement is provided with whatever new clothing, toiletries, snacks, and other miscellaneous items that he or she may require.” Having further expanded its  horizons to “encompass all victims of sexual violence in California,” this non-profit also provides for children who are sexually exploited commercially and human sex trafficking victims.

Currently active in 25 California counties, The Grateful Garment Project is partnered with more than 60 agencies statewide who also share the organization’s vision of helping victims of sexual violence. Thanks to The Grateful Garment Project and its partnerships, between 25 and 40 women, children, and men, are provided with resources each day in California. In fact, during The Grateful Garment Project’s 2015-2016 fiscal year, the organization donated more than 25,000 items. From a t-shirt to a pair of sweatpants, a little bit of care and respect can go a long way in the effort to provide sexual assault victims with a shred of dignity.

“Every 109 seconds, another person experiences sexual assault,” and although “the number of assaults has fallen by more than half since 1993,” the sad fact is that “only 6 out of every 1,000 rapists will end up in prison.” These statistics taken from the RAINN website are not only eye-opening, but also heartbreaking. Until sexual assault is eradicated, until victims are no longer blamed for being victimized, we should do our part to make the rape kit process as tolerable as possible. Consider donating to The Grateful Garment Project, and if you, or someone you know, are suffering in silence, don’t hesitate to contact the 24/7 National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.

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Image of Hopeful Woman Opening Curtains via Shutterstock

The post The Grateful Garment Project: Returning Dignity to Sexual Assault Survivors, One Piece of Clothing at a Time appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’ve all likely seen–or at the very least heard of–the video of Ray Rice, the indefinitely suspended professional football player, punching his then girlfriend, now fiancé, Janay Rice, in the face.

The video is incredibly upsetting for many reasons. First, we’re witnessing domestic abuse, which is terrible and inexcusable. Second, after the viewing the tape, the NFL decided to only suspend Rice for a few games. He punched a woman in the face and was given a less harsh punishment than players caught with marijuana.

Now, since the full video has been released to the press, the NFL has backtracked and suspended Rice indefinitely and the Ravens cut him from the team. While it’s all well and good that the NFL eventually gave Rice a more damning penalty, its original response was totally gross and proves that the organization could give a flip about women and their safety.

And since the tape has come out, it appears that more people than just the NFL are in the woman hating, victim blaming game. The news has been filled with people saying the following incredibly stupid things:

“Well, she shouldn’t have…”

“If you hit a man, expect to get hit.”

“What did she expect?”

“Why the hell did she stay?”

“She shouldn’t leave because of her family.”

Let’s just say this up front: It’s never the victim’s fault. Never. Case closed. And the whole, “why did she stay,” “she can’t leave,” discussions are often tainted by people’s uneducated thoughts and opinions. Enter the #WhyIStayed and the #WhyILeft hashtags. These hashtags are helping people explain to the public the deep reasons why some women decide to stay in an abuseive relationship, and why some women decide to go.

It’s never easy for a victim of domestic violence to leave an abusive relationship. Often times, women have no financial resources to start over. Also: If a woman leaves, and her abuser finds her, she could be in even more danger.

Luckily, this horrible video and some of the ugly discussions are sparking some intelligent conversations. Women are talking about why they stayed and why they left, and also are discussing why we – the public – can never, ever blame a woman who is beaten.

Resources

“How to Know You Hate Women,” Feministing

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Image: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

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When it comes to how we talk about young women and sexuality, Miley’s twerk is the least of our problems.

Miley Cyrus’ VMA performance took over the news cycle this week. There was outrage about slut-shaming—why was everyone disgusted by her but not by Robin Thicke? There was a gut feeling among many that Miley Cyrus’ performance was racist, but no one summed up why better than blogger Cate with her post, “Solidarity Is For Miley Cyrus: The Racial Implications of Her VMA Performance.” If you read one more post about the twerk heard around the world, make it Cate’s.

There was reaction [yawn] from the Thicke and Cyrus families and endless cable news coverage of the VMAs mocked aptly by The Onion. So, yeah, everyone (myself included) is spending the week obsessing over a young 20-year-old white woman appropriating black culture, abusing her tongue muscles and rubbing her junk all over a guy old enough (36) to be her creepy uncle.

But something else happened this week that, by comparison, barely made headlines. A teacher who raped his 14-year-old student was sentenced to 30 whole days in jail. In 2008, the girl was raped by her 49-year-old teacher, Stacey Dean Rambold. The victim-blaming in this case started at the top, with this statement from Judge G. Todd Baugh: “It’s not probably the kind of rape most people think about. It was not a violent, forcible, beat-the-victim rape, like you see in the movies. But it was nonetheless a rape. It was a troubled young girl, and he was a teacher. And this should not have occurred.” He has since apologized, but the sentiment is clear.

Maybe if the rape had been more like a movie rape, the victim would still be alive. But just a few weeks before her 17th birthday, she took her own life. After confessing, the rapist was sentenced to 30 days in jail. He confessed to raping a child and got 30 days. One month. Because, you know, like a girl who died at 16, his life is sorta ruined, too.

After the sentencing, the victim’s mother shouted at the court, “You people suck.” She went on to point out in a statement, “Judge Baugh, who never met our daughter, justified the paltry sentence saying she was older than her chronological age. I guess somehow it makes a rape more acceptable if you blame the victim, even if she was only 14.”

Older than her age. Does that mean she wore lipstick? Low-cut shirts? Flirted with her teacher? Sought attention? Asked for it? Or, does it somehow connect to the idea that we’re so accustomed to seeing young women on display that kids are fair game for sexual predators?

I am not implying that Miley Cyrus was coerced into her performance, or that Thicke is a rapist—and I’m definitely not saying that the staged performance we saw on the VMAs is akin to what happened to this teenager in Montana. Cyrus is an adult woman who makes a living performing—but it’s hard to forget that only a few years ago, she was simply child star, Hannah Montana.

As a culture, we sexualize young women—just look back a few years to the countdown to Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen’s 18th birthday. I am pretty sure no one was waiting to see who they would vote for. We make it unsafe for girls to experiment with their sexuality and figure out who they want to be as women. We tell them that sexy is cool and being provocative will make people like them. Then, when older men (or women) take advantage of them, we slut-shame them and blame them for being victims of crimes.

Not for nothing, PornHub released a study of keyword searches by state this week. “Teen” was the top search in seven states.

Image: PVBroadz

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Slut-Shaming: That Happened

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Women everywhere share common challenges.

Do women lack confidence? Is there a natural tendency to blame women victims in every culture? Do women in developed countries have similar problems as women in developing countries?

I recently attended the Women in the World 2011 Stories and Solutions summit. If you caught up with EcoSalon last week, you may have read our summit coverage on child trafficking and girls in sports. As I listened to the different topics, ranging from women on the front lines, to women business leaders, to a woman who wants to build a floating hospital on Lake Tanganyika, to Hillary Clinton’s address, I noticed three persistent themes in the varied panel topics. Confidence. Victim-blaming. Strength.

Confidence

Interestingly, confidence cut both ways. Women like Divya Keshav and Eva Walusimbi lit up as they told about how they started their own businesses and were able to contribute to their families and their communities. Divya built a thriving accessories business in Haiti with the help of Diane von Furstenberg before the earthquake wiped out her shop and all her hard work. Undeterred, she is in the process of rebuilding, strengthened by her previous success. Her growing confidence was plain to see due to the support and praise from von Furstenberg (who was also present at the summit).

Walusimbi is part of Solar Sister, an Avon-type women’s business network supported by ExxonMobil’s Women’s Economic Opportunity that sells solar lights to rural residents in Uganda. She beamed as she told the audience how she helped women have safe lighting so they could extend their work day into the evening and girls could study after their chores were done. Other women from developing countries told similar stories of feeling immeasurable pride in themselves when they were supported and encouraged by others – whether they were starting a business, recovering from a trauma, or fighting for women’s rights.

However, during at least two sessions, The Marzipan Layer and New Ways to Lead, the panelists talked about the tendency of women in the U.S. to lack confidence, to have difficulty negotiating for themselves, and to understate their worth during job negotiations. While women in developing countries, who are only beginning to be able to explore opportunities, are building their confidence in themselves, women in the U.S. who have many more opportunities, are seen as still suffering from a confidence problem.

Victim-Blaming

Victim-blaming is a universal issue. In Stealing Beauty, we met Yem Chhuon and her daughter, who were victims of an acid attack by her husband’s mistress. The panelists explained that acid attacks are meant to severely injure, but not kill their victims, and they are carried out by both men and women. Acid is an easy weapon to get, and assault carries a light sentence, if it is even prosecuted.

Acid attacks are the equivalent of burning a scarlet letter onto victims’ faces. Society’s first instinct is to believe that the victim did something to deserve the attack, and since most often the victims’ faces are affected, it is the first reaction they get from everyone they meet for the rest of their lives. If it sounds barbaric, that’s because it is. But it has also arrived in the U.S. Even as we were learning about acid attacks in Manhattan, there was one reported the same day in Brooklyn. And it’s not the first one in the U.S.

Other panels focused on the widespread problem of rape in developing countries and how to stop it, the cultural attitude that allows it, and the victim-blaming that accompanies it. However, that’s an attitude that is present everywhere. Sadly, victim blaming is practically a recognized sport in the U.S. For every tragedy, there are people who respond from the heart, showing empathy and support, and there are always those who believe that somehow the victim brought it on herself. What was she wearing? What is her sexual history? These inappropriate and subtly accusatory questions are all too common.

Recently, there has been a furor over the victim-blaming of an 11-year-old victim in Texas who was raped by 17 men. Mother Jones took the New York Times to task over what it perceived as their victim-blaming reporting, but the residents of the town itself seemed more concerned about the effect this crime would have on the accused men (including two basketball stars and the son of a school board member) while few showed any sympathy for the child victim.

After CBS reported the sexual assault of CBS reporter Lara Logan in Egypt, a frenzy of public reaction swept across the Internet. Shockingly, several public figures showed little concern for Logan. Nir Rosen joked about Logan’s assault on Twitter, saying she was “probably just groped, like thousands of other women,” resulting in his dismissal from a fellowship at NYU. Debbie Schlussel publicized flagrantly cold-hearted comments on her blog including, “so sad, too bad, Laura.” Even other reporters seemed to blame it on her looks. Some of her colleagues rallied to her defense, but they were all but drowned out by the controversy.

Many sites that reported on her assault were inundated with comments from readers ranging from insensitivity to claiming that it was her own fault for being there, and worse. NPR was forced to close their comments due to their inappropriate nature, and its editor scolded commenters equally for victim blaming and for vilifying all Egyptian and Arab men. Saying that she should not have been there because she is a woman, in my opinion, is still victim-blaming, dressed up in a benevolent chauvinism.

In our piece on child trafficking, we already discussed the victim-blaming attitude that persists for young girls. Evidently there are no circumstances where victims cannot somehow be blamed. There have been vicious tweets blaming the Japanese people for the recent earthquake. Hearing and reading about it everywhere has become profoundly depressing. Why is there such a persistent need to blame the victims of crimes, particularly women?

Strength

While there were grim stories shared at the Women in the World summit, there were also many stories of strength, bravery and accomplishment.

Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright demonstrated that although their politics are vastly different, they have much in common in their support for women’s rights and opportunities. They both called for more women to join politics and make their voices heard.

One of the most powerful moments of the summit was when Hillary Clinton spoke. She introduced a partnership between the Seven Sisters colleges (Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe College, Smith College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College) and the U.S. State Department, to launch a new Women and Public Service Initiative – another milestone in her lifelong work on the behalf of women.

Host Tina Brown and other female titans such as Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, Zainab Salbi, Founder of Women for Women International, and Kirsten Gillibrand, U.S. Senator (NY) also demonstrated through their accomplishments that women today have more opportunities than at any other time in history. Yet, we still have so many obstacles to overcome, and there remains a vast divide between women and men on the uneven playing field of respect and common decency. In many ways, some attitudes toward women have not progressed much, even in developed countries.

Will Equality Solve These Problems?

How do we build confidence in all women, eliminate victim-blaming, and continue to celebrate women’s strength and accomplishments? In Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown’s debut issue of Newsweek, Kathleen Parker writes an article about how “women make lousy men.” She posits the idea that women are striving so hard to be equal to men that they are losing sight of what it means to be a woman. That women are trying, in effect, not only to be as good as men, but to be men. “It turns out that women make lousy men, a fact for which we should feel grateful rather than apologetic.”

She writes, “Women have tried to fit into a male-constructed world and found it either uninviting or inflexible to their needs.” She goes on to say, “Until women are equal partners in the human race, we are less secure and surely less interesting…When women achieve parity in boardrooms and legislatures, they’ll no longer have to twist into male versions of themselves but can help fashion a world that is a better fit for them and the human beings they create.” Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that women are just as valuable as men, but their identities and needs will always be different. Maybe just that concession could make a difference in how women are perceived, treated, and appreciated.

As for the cure for victim blaming? I wish I knew.

Image: Wrote

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