Book Week 4

These past couple chapters of the book "To the Survivor" has been so eye opening to me. I read two stories of survivors, one was a man who was molested by a priest and one was a woman who was raped by a friend. Both of them had different stories and different journeys after being sexually assaulted but both them are good places in their lives. The man's story was very shocking to read about. This man was molested by a priest in 8th grade but never realized he was molested until 25 years later. He never connected the dots and just suppressed those memories within him. When I read this, I think about the catholic priest molester jokes I heard in middle school and I thought wow the jokes we made actually happened to people. I just had the feeling of disgust because there are people like him who suppress these memories for years and never realize it and when they do the damage has been done and there are very few things to do to get closure. He couldn't confront his molester anymore, the molester was dead. What made things worst was that their was another priest that could have stopped the event from happening but he did nothing. This lack of action or willing to make a change lead to so much pain and suffering for others. Being a bystander is the worst. But still going through all of that, he was able to speak about it and empower himself and have positive mind.
The other story was about how this woman was raped and went through years of depression and going through bad relationships. Even going through all of that, she is still able to smile and be energetic and empower herself. I would not think she would be a survivor of rape from the descriptions about her. She did not follow the stereotypes of people who have been raped. She showed me that victims of sexual assault do not have to be quiet and scared of the world. They can still have their life put together and overcome their issues. These two people really showed that their sexual assault did not have to end their normal life.

Book Week 3

I read a couple of more chapters To the Survivor. They the chapters were about survivors of sexual violence telling their story to the narrator and how they became evolved in advocacy to end sexual violence. The stories I read were so powerful that I almost cried. These survivors allowed themselves to be put in the vulnerable position of letting their private life, public to everyone. There are so many reasons to not publicized these types stories but they have the will power to share their pain to educate people and help others that are going through the same problems is amazing. As a person who still is learning more and more about the issue of sexual violence, these stories give me the closest thing to understanding a survivor's mentality. Even though it might just be a small part of the story and the feeling they experience, it is still better than feeling sympathetic and not knowing anything about the events that happened. I feel that these stories are necessary for people to learn but I feel that it is wrong for wanting them to speak about their stories. As a society we should not need to have someone hurt themselves for us to show compassion and empathy but we need to because compassion is not something everyone has. In the book, men and women all showed a lack of compassion towards these victims. It might seem disgusting but a huge part of our population is like that. I had that the same experience talking about race and class. Since I have bad experiences with race and class, it is hard to talk about it but people do not understand. My lack of speaking does not mean my issues of race and class do not matter, it means that I need to feel comfortable enough to talk about it. Since there has not been a safe space for me to speak, I have not spoken about it. My experiences are not at all like these survivors but I feel empathy towards the problems their going through.

Book Week 2

I read 4 more chapters of the book "To the Survivor."  These four chapters were very intense to read about but was very needed to understand the effects of sexual violence and how sexual violence is over looked. A couple of the chapters were about the stories of survivors speaking at a rally to end rape culture and sexual violence. After reading the story, I was disgusted by the law and the humans who commit these crimes. The law let these people, who survived a traumatic experience, go through these traumatic experiences all over again. The law are very lenient on these people who were sexually harassed. Unlike getting physically abuse, unwanted sexual touching does not leave a mark. This leaves no proof which makes it hard for the law to believe the survivor. I see this as being a huge problem of our society victim blames. As society we cannot blame the surroundings for the problem but we have to blame the person, who experienced the pain, for getting into the situation. These perpetrators are the problem of our society, they need a punishment not a slap on the wrist like $250 fine, they need go to prison or at least jail. But our society just does not make the law hard enough to really hurt these people and give them the idea that these type things are ok.

Another chapter in the book was called victim blaming and I think explained victim blaming really well. He explained the effects of it and how it is detrimental to our society especially for people who have experience sexual violence. This idea of blaming the victims for their own problems, is so illogical but we still do it. In the media their was a case of a girl getting raped at a party. Instead of blaming the rapist, the media blamed the girl for being drunk and letting herself get raped. We cannot promote this way of thinking through the media. People who have been sexually assaulted will not be able to feel comfortable in society if we keep this type of mindset.

Book Week 1

March is white ribbon month and the white ribbon is supposed to represent men showing their support to end violence against women, so I wanted to find a book about people helping women who suffer through domestic violence. I ended up finding a book about sexual violence from the point of a view from a male perspective called "To the Survivors". I had a very basic background on sexual violence towards women from my work and my learning on domestic violence. After reading the first 8 chapters of this book, I expanded my understanding on sexual violence and see a man working in this type of work.

I connect a lot with the views of the narrator and it made me feel like something I could do. The narrator is like the average guy. He has never experience sexual violence and just got into the work because he felt that morally sexual violence is wrong like everyone should but he actually took the initiative to do something about those feelings. Many people see sexual violence as a problem but never do anything about it but he did something about it even though that field is dominated by women. The rape survivor center he interned had one other male intern and the rest of the interns and employees were females. 

His perspective of working here shows how much work men have to do to stop these sexual violence problems. He talks about how we victim blame and how we look down on people who are raped instead of being there to support them which seem so illogical. How can people criticize rape victims instead of helping them and help normalize their life? It just does not make sense. I want to do this work to help these people who need the help the most.