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*This blog post reflects my personal opinion and does not represent the opinions of other people and/or organization that I am affiliated with.
When I was in high school I thought my local Sexual Assault Centre was the most amazing place on earth. During this time of my life I was struggling with my own healing journey from sexual assault, and while I was not accessing services myself from the centre, they were like a beacon of hope to me. I thought it was amazing what the centre was doing to help survivors; I looked up to the them. It had become a life goal to one day work for the organization, specifically in the public education department. My passion is rooted in the educational piece in the world of advocacy, so I thought I had found the place, and the career, I belonged to. I finished high school and ran straight into my Bachelor of Arts degree, always keeping the goal of working for the centre right in the forefront of my mind to remind myself of what I am working towards. I quickly signed up for their extensive training to become a volunteer for their crisis line. I finished the training and jumped on to that line as fast as I could, where I logged over 1,000 hours.
Fast forward in time to me graduating with my university degree – I had everything I needed, now I had to wait for that job to open and when it finally did, I was over the moon excited. I polished that resume and studied, studied, studied so I knew I would pass the interview questions with flying colors. The interview day came and that is where everything went downhill at lightening speed.
I was interviewed by a panel of four individuals – the executive director of the sexual assault centre (at the time), her assistant (at the time) and two people that worked in the public education department. This interview fundamentally shook up my life goals, my feelings towards the centre, and had left me feeling empty and humiliated.
There were several inappropriate and incredibly shameful things that were said during this interview that left deep wounds which I am still trying to heal. The executive director had looked over my resume and saw that I spent a summer volunteering at a male rehabilitation facility. When she read over this, she pointed it out and discussed that part of this job would be helping out with fundraisers, such as working a casino night for example – I already knew this and I didn’t see how the two subjects connected, but I nodded anyway. She then referred back to my volunteer work at the rehab facility and said “these fundraisers will include being around alcohol and gambling… will you be okay doing this?” - I sat there for a minute in utter confusion. Was she really making the assumption that I suffered with addiction issues because I volunteered at a rehab centre? Surely I must be wrong…. With a furrowed brow, I slowly responded with “Yes… yes I would not have a problem with that”. A little later on in the interview, the executive director said, “This job requires you to have a valid driver’s licence and a reliable vehicle – do you have these things?” - I informed her that I do have a car and that I will have my drivers licence next week. She looked up at me with a perplexed look on her face and asked why I would have my license next week. I let her know that I only had my learners permit at this time and my road test to get my full licence was booked for next week. The executive director looked shocked again, gasped and said “OH! I thought you were going to say you had a D.U.I or something!”
…
I sat there stunned. I began to notice the others in the room awkwardly laughing, so I force a few awkward laughs out too. I literally did not know what to do or if I had even heard her right. I kept thinking, surely I didn’t hear her right; she seriously did not just say that.
I regained my footing and continued on with the interview, but they weren’t through with throwing punches just yet. The executive director said “Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room”. I had no clue what she was referring to, but I politely said “Okay”. She then proceeded to bring up my involvement in hosting an awareness event called Slutwalk. I knew the event itself was a bit of a controversial one, but the core of the event is what I believed to be a shared mission with all advocates in this field – to eliminate rape culture – to eliminate the idea that someone could possible “ask” to be assaulted because of what they choose to wear. It became very clear, very fast, that the executive director of this organization did not approve of this event and, in fact, had what seemed to me many, many, misperceptions of the event. It has since been explained to me that she does not approve of the event because she feels that it is a “police bashing” event and she doesn’t want to tarnish the relationship the organization has with our local police force. When I heard this, I was filled with rage because anyone who has taken even one minute to learn about the event would know that it has nothing to do with targeting police. Yes, the event did spark from one particular victim blaming incident that did involve a police officer, but the event itself is so much bigger than that. The event is not targeting police as the problem; instead it is pointing out how much victim blaming and rape myths are still very much prominent in our society - and the aim is to eliminate this. We have had a police presence at every event and they are treated with the utmost respect. It became exceptionally clear in this interview that if I began employment with this organization, my involvement with Slutwalk would be no further. I could not believe this was happening. How could they dictate how I lived my life outside of work like this? Aren’t we all on the same team?
My heart sank, but the punches kept rolling.
This conversation provided the executive director a perfect segue to her next, and most damaging, swing - my personal healing journey and my personal activism. As part of my own healing, I have become very open with my story as a means to educate others – I write blogs, I do public speaking engagements, I’ve been on the news, in local newspapers and magazines. This has become a fundamental piece of who I am and how I see my own purpose in life. It didn’t take very long for me to understand that she had an issue with this too and that if I were to be hired with the organization, this is also a piece of me I would be forced to leave behind. This shook me to my core. How can a sexual assault centre seriously tell someone that if they want to be a public educator, they will need to silence their own story and their own public advocacy? I felt all that vile shame gurgle back up in my throat – my story is not important – my story is shameful – I should have just stayed silent.
After this interview, I felt very lost. I had been so sure about what I wanted to do in life, but everything had just been flipped upside down. I felt deep, deep, shame in my advocacy work and my self-blame was spreading in my mind like cancer. I felt disgusting. I felt confused. It took me months to bounce back from this and realize that I had done nothing wrong. Needless to say; I got a rejection letter in the mail a few weeks later, which came as no surprise to me. I honestly still do not understand why I was even given an interview, as clearly I was never in a million years going to get that position with all the ludicrous and damaging assumptions and judgements this executive director had placed on me. Was the interview just a way to humiliate me? If so, great job to them – they did a bang up job, A+.
I ended up revoking my volunteer work on their crisis line shortly thereafter. This was not an easy decision to make by any means. I felt strongly about the crisis line and the work I was doing on it – the fact that I could be the first person that a survivor told their story to, or I was the first person that told a survivor that they are believed – the importance of having staff on that line was undeniable. But at the end of the day I had to look after my own self too – and being part of an organization that placed such judgments and shame on survivors like what I experienced was not something I wanted to be part of. This experience also opened up my eyes to see other people’s opinions and experiences with the centre. I have since heard many other stories like my own. I have heard of people driving an hour and a half to a different city to received services at the next closest sexual assault centre because they do not want to go back to our centre. I’ve heard far too many stories of people being let down and further hurt by this organization. Failing even one survivor is one too many.
Going through this experience with the sexual assault centre still affects me, I am often now hesitint to tell others of my advocacy work in fear that they will look at me and judge me in the same way that executive director did. During my interview with my current position, I stated my involvement in advocacy work outside of my employment to see if this would be okay. I fully expected problems to arise once I said this – however, the interviewer looked at me in confusion and said “it won’t be a problem at all – in fact your advocacy work is one of the reasons we want to hire you”. I still seek permission from my employer every time I engage with my activism work outside of my employment, which I know I really don’t need to, but it is a hard habit to break. I am still trying to become comfortable and confident in my activism like I once used to be.
Another aspect this has greatly affected my life, which takes me to my most recent encounter with the centre, is in regards to reporting my own sexual assault. I have not reported my assault to the police for a number of reasons, mostly relating to fear. I have also talked, off the record, to a detective on the sexual assault unit of our police force, but was told my case had very little chance of going to trial. You can read more about that experience in my previous blog post here. There is, however, another reporting option called Third Party Reporting, which is something I would personally like to pursue. Third Party Reporting essentially means that you can file an anonymous report to the police through the sexual assault centre. A report would be made at the centre and would be faxed off to the police with only a file number attached, so there is no identifying information on the report. If the police read over the report and find that there are grounds to move forward with the case, they will contact the centre to let them know that – the centre would then contact the person who filled out the report and that survivor is then given the option if they would like to speak further to the police or not. In my present circumstance, this feels like the only viable option for me. I kept this option to myself for years because I knew it would mean reaching out to this sexual assault centre. I do not trust them with my phone number at this point, let alone a matter as serious as this – but I’ve had a number of signs leading me to this lately, and I feel like this is something I must pursue. I sat with this for several weeks before mustering up the courage to place myself in a vulnerable situation with these people. I emailed their general info@ address on June 25th simply asking who would be the best person to talk to about this reporting option. I was responded to the next day with this email:
Hello Stephanie
Regarding 3rd party reporting, this was something that evolved from our partnership with EPS. We have forms here that are completed by clients that would like to report the offender but not include their identifying information. We have them complete a detailed form regarding the sexual assault, then keep their names separate and fax the information into EPS in case there is a serial perpetrator with several victims. If EPS contacts us we would only give out the person's name with their permission.
If you have any other questions just let me know.
Thanks Karen
I was happy that I was responded to, however, this was not the information I was looking for. So I responded to this email that same day asking her my specific questions. My anxiety was running off the charts – I was scared – I was vulnerable – and I knew that my courage to tackle this wasn’t going to last much longer. I sat and waited for a response. I waited... And waited… And waited. A few weeks went by and I gave up on the idea that I was ever going to be responded to – that I was ever going to be taken seriously with this organization. My courage was gone and my trauma took center stage again – I reeled in this pain for a few nights and then I had decided to run an experiment. I sent an email to the much smaller, University Sexual Assault Centre to see what would happen and if they would reply to individuals on a timely manner – even if that individual was not a university student. I sent an email to them and within hours I was provided with all the information I was asking for, included care and compassion from the staff there. I felt heard and supported – a feeling I have never received with the main centre.
That is when I wrote a facebook rant about my experience. How could a centre that is suppose to be the experts in this field, for this city, be so tardy with providing vitally important information. How could a centre like this fail so many times to provide care, compassion and support?
When I woke up the next morning, I had a private message on my facebook with the new executive director of the centre (she was previously the assistant executive director). The message was very kind and very apologetic. She was on a vacation in Europe, but still felt the need to reach out and deal with this matter immediately. She asked me to provide additional information and then she got in contact with those who work at the centre to get to the bottom of what was going on and what was taking so long. By the end of that working day, which was now July 12th, I had a response from the centre. So it only took getting spoken to by the executive director before the staff did their job? Okay, mentally noted. As I began to read this blunt email, my heart began to sink. She had completely disregarded a question I had asked and instead sent this:
Stephanie
After checking with EPS they prefer if we offer the 3rd party reporting to our clients. After speaking with some of our staff that have volunteered at the U of A, it sounds like they do not have the same parameters about being a client. It might be good to check with them in order to file the report if you are still interested.
Karen
This reporting option was really my only option for justice and I just had yet another door slammed into my face. I realize that the option itself is not yet completely closed, as I do have another avenue I could try. But at this point, I am far too exhausted for any more – not to mention I am confused as hell. If this information is correct, how could our police put up parameters for this reporting option with one organization but not the other? Something just doesn’t make sense here. If this is true, why are parameters like this in place anyway? The rate of reporting sexual assault is horrendously low to begin with – shouldn’t we be making any type of reporting option as viable for survivors as possible? When an organization is exceptionally tardy with responding to important questions like this and then bounce that survivor around to another organization, I feel like the assumption can easily be made that they lose a lot of survivors through the cracks who need help or want to report. How can we be turning survivors away that want to report their assault simply because they are not accessing their specific counselling services? What if someone can’t access their specific counselling services because of transportation reasons, or what if someone chooses to access counselling services from elsewhere because their wait-list is so long? Are they really going to turn all those people away too? I am baffled, disheartened and downright disgusted to be honest.
I am unsure at this point which direction I may go next, but what I do know for sure is we need better services for survivors of sexual assault. We need care, compassion, openness and support for survivors – which we seem to have a serious lack of here. We need a place where every survivor feels safe. We need a place where survivors can go for support and not leave feeling more injured. We simply need to do better - and it is my mission to do whatever it takes to make this change happen.