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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt’s on us to go beyond ‘It’s On Us’
Its on us to go beyond Its On Us
Identify situations in which sexual assault may occur.
If you see something, intervene in any way you can.
If something looks like a bad situation, it probably is.
Get someone to help if you see something.
Get in the way by creating a distraction.
The White Houses flashy new bystander intervention campaign, Its On Us, makes sexual assault sound a lot like a bad thunderstorm unfortunate, inevitable, striking seemingly out of nowhere, and devoid of human agents. The solution, then, is easy and comfortable: Identify situations in which [a-tornado-I-mean-sexual-assault] may occur and guide your friend to safety; remember: If something looks like a bad situation, it probably is.
Gender-based violence is not like the weather. It has direct, immediate human agents and is structural and systemic at its core. But the new campaign de-politicizes and de-genders sexual assault, portraying it as an easy-to-avoid problem solely between individuals, and making perpetrators out to be vague someones who do something to other someones. In reality, perpetrators are disproportionately likely to be men and their victims are disproportionately likely to be women (particularly queer and trans women, women of color, and women with disabilities), queer men, and gender non-conforming folks.
The Its On Us campaigns failure to conceptualize of violence as systemic and structural guts meaningful responses to it. While bystander intervention more broadly may be usefully integrated into a more comprehensive anti-violence approach, it has serious limitations. And the way its framed in Its On Us, it offers a strategy to avoid violence, not meaningfully reduce it. The campaigns tips like guiding your friends away from perpetrators at parties might help an individual woman avoid a rapist in an individual instance but it wont stop that rapist from turning to the next girl down the bar. It makes the problem seem discrete and manageable, with a quick fix that fits comfortably within an existing structure of how our world works, who has power, and who doesnt. It enlists men, for instance, to protect their female friends at a bar but not to recognize their own power and privilege, the subtle ways in which they enact violence all the time.
Its On Us is so appealing precisely because it doesnt require us to disrupt the status quo.
. . . .
http://feministing.com/2014/09/22/its-on-us-to-go-beyond-its-on-us/
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)"It's on us" means it's on us, men and women as a society, all of us, to solve this.
This makes sense to me because it's people who have the power to push for legislation and act more locally, among their peers.
Is it the entire solution? Hell, no, but it's certainly a part of the solution.
To recognize that non-consensual sex is sexual assault.
To identify situations in which sexual assault may occur.
To intervene in situations where consent has not or cannot be given.
To create an environment in which sexual assault is unacceptable and survivors are supported.
http://itsonus.org/
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