I had a rather heated discussion with a friend about the travesties going on at Parliament House in Canberra on the weekend. Her view was that Brittany Higgins should have gone to the police there an then. She should have lawyered up then and there and took it to the police. Sod the workplace routine.
(Nevermind that Parliament House has been trying to obfuscate the events, right down to steam cleaning the Minister's office after the event, and not handing over the security tape to the police until media scrutiny, two years later, made them do this (albeit begrudgingly))
I took a more pragmatic stand stating she felt that she had nowhere to go, it took a while to sink in just what went on and what happened, and being honest, the toxic culture at Parliament House is there to cover any actions by staffers, sweep it under the carpet, let boys be boys and just get on with it with no hoo-haa.
Right.
Both of us work in corporate environments. I'd like to think that if anything happened like this in my place of work I could talk to my manager and the HR department and feel fully supported. My friend said that should wouldn't take it to HR as HR is there for the company and what would they do anyway?
Then the conversation went down the road of reporting and why she didn't do things sooner. The guy was going to get off anyway - it's a 'he said, she said' arrangement - and yeah, what can you do?
So my blood was quietly boiling away, as it tends to do when discussion the inequalities served out to Australian Women on the whole. Are things getting better? Sort of. Is it anywhere near where it needs to be? Absolutely not. Does it make my blood boil when I hear other women backing down on this? Shit, yeah.
The conversation with me ended with the words. "Well, if I were you, I'd be teaching your sons about informed consent now. And I'd teach them not to rape." I'm not sure she liked what I had to say.
But I have my reasons.
I'm one of the large percentage of women who've been sexually assaulted. Yep, I'm one of the #MeToo women. Far too many people I know are one of this number.
What can I tell you about it, and why I'm emotionally invested in this story?
Well, from my own experience, it can take a while, a long while to work out that something has gone on. For me, it took about a year. A year when my behaviours changed, where I wasn't myself, where I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't place it. It finally came out when I was entering a relationship with another guy and I couldn't let him near me. And it was then that things twigged.
This is a common reaction.
Then you know after that you can't do anything about it. In my case, in the scheme of things, back in the early nineties when this occurred, there was literally no point pursuing anything. I wouldn't be believed. There was no evidence. I'd had no contact with the bloke since, and for this I was grateful. If I'm honest, it took me moving to England for eight years to wash the stigma, shame and self-loathing from my psyche. A bit extreme? It's better than self-harm or worse.
But the fact that you've been violated resides in you. It's insidious. It seeps into your being and integrates with your psyche. It makes you distrust, second guess and doubt. It takes away your confidence and happiness. It saps you of your life essence - and you've had something taken away.
And unless you deal with it - and you need to deal with it in so many ways - through therapy, through talking, to doing everything in your power to eliminate this evil from your system. And it can take years.
So I get it. I get the commotion. And I want change.
It appears younger women are getting on board too. Another friend posted a link to a story about a petition started by a group of schoolgirls in Sydney. What's concerning is that it relates the stories of school girls being sexually assaulted by private school boys - the boys who are seen as the next echelon coming through the ranks. It's sobering reading. These are the boys who are growing into 'men' who will allegedly lead the country. Its this entitled and consequence free behaviour which is dragging us back in time. It's just like the outrage the Stanford Rapist caused. It is interesting to see that a boy with such a bright future is now living with his parents and barely earning minimum wage.
It's time that there were some consequences for these unwanted actions.
Keeping silent never helps anybody - but you have to have it in yourself to speak up.
Good on her I say.
And maybe, if you can, start the conversations about informed consent early. If you whoever you're with says 'No', or 'I don't want to do that', or 'I've changed me mind', respect it. Stop. Leave who ever you're with alone - because you really don't want to be a part of messing up somebody's life.
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