This has been a hard few weeks. As the Executive Director at the DOVE Project, almost every conversation I have had recently with community members has circled back to how to deal with the emotions that the Supreme Court confirmation hearings have triggered. Watching the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford can provoke PTSD responses that remind us of our grief, our vulnerability and our shame and activates a fight, flight or freeze reaction of our nervous system. This disables us from being able to focus, breathe and function. We all want to somehow prove to the rest of the world around us that this is something all of us deal with daily. We want to scream it from the rooftops. We want people to know the outrage boiling within us. This is real, and it affects all of us.

We need to recognize that many members of our community are, in one form or another, survivors of sexual assault. They are people who have been assaulted, supporters of survivors, perpetrators of assault or often combinations of these things.

For every 1,000 sexual assaults, only 310 are reported to the authorities. Last week, the glaring reasons that survivors do not report was highlighted for all to see. Survivors like Dr. Ford, childhood survivors from the Catholic church and the Olympic gymnastics team have all experienced similar reactions. Their character is called into question, and there are many who simply don’t believe because of the “amazing timing” or because “if it was that bad, you would have gone to the authorities years ago.” We place our own labels on a situation to make it more palatable or easy to swallow, especially when the circumstances feel uncomfortable. The patriachal systems that cause this oppression can often lead survivors to feel apologetic for their own victimization. Vulnerability, fear, shame and embarrassment is what our culture gives to survivors in response to their reporting of truth. Many take their experience to the grave. It took a nomination to the Supreme Court to drive Dr. Christine Blasey Ford to speak out about her incident.

These repeated situations have given us the opportunity to re-open the conversation around all levels of assault and how prevalent it is in this country. We have a problem with how we treat survivors, and this needs to change. Issues that affect our safety, privacy and freedoms will always drive heated debates. But it’s time we change how we treat sexual assault survivors and those who create harm. We have swept it under the carpet long enough.

All the following contribute to fostering a culture of sexual assault: underlying power dynamics; patriarchy; assumptions and myths, and understandings of masculinity and femininity, sex and consent. We can change this. We can educate ourselves about the patriarchal system that still defines our culture. We can learn about what consent is and teach it to our kids. We can find ways to show humanity and kindness. We can build accountability constructs in our community. Like Dr. Ford, it only takes one person to change the course of a conversation or the lens upon which an event is portrayed. We all can make a difference to change this narrative. One courageous person standing up and saying “this is wrong” leads the way for others to gain the strength to do the same.

— Heidi Jackson