Originally posted at http://minneapolitanmademoiselle.blogspot.com/
Welcome to the 16th and final day of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. Today's topic is violence against women in social movements and I'll be focusing on something that's close to home for many of us - the Occupy movement.
If you type "sexual assault occupy" into Google, you get a number of hits relating to alleged sexual assaults at various Occupy sites throughout the world, including Hartford, CT; Christchurch, NZ; Washington, DC; Montreal; Seattle, WA; New York, NY; Dallas, TX; and Cleveland, OH. I decided to take a look at some of the articles and get an idea of what kind of coverage these incidences received.
Note: We obviously can't know how/why the people who are quoted were chosen to be interviewed or how others at the various sites who were not interviewed feel about the issue of sexual assault at these Occupy sites. And we don't know the motivation behind all of the news outlets who covered the assaults. This post is not meant to condemn the Occupy movement, but to suggest that there are changes that need to be made in order to make the movement open and safe to all. The first of these steps is to recognize that all types of people perpetrate and are victims of sexual assault.
The following are a few quotations (and my comments about why they're problematic) from some of the articles that I read:
"These protests have a history of welcoming everyone and just assuming they're on your side," said David Meyer, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Irvine, who studies protest movements. (1)
This quotation is problematic because it assumes that everyone is already on the same side - that the Occupy protesters have healthy views on respecting women, sex and consent and that others who may join them may not be "on their side." As other protesters have noted, the Occupy movement is a microcosm of the real world. There is no shortage of people in the real world who are sexist, misogynist and/or who sexually assault women. Which means that there are people among the protesters in the Occupy movement who are sexist, misogynist and/or who sexually assault women, too.
"Just because this is a protest in a park doesn't mean you're immune to crime," he said. "People need to act as if it is any other day in their lives." (1)
This one reeks of victim-blaming to me. The protester doesn't acknowledge the fact that men shouldn't be sexually assaulting women in the first place, just calls on prospective victims to ensure their own safety. These women have been assaulted because someone chose to assault them, not because they didn't "act as if it is any other day in their lives." I would reply to him with this: "Yes, people need to act as if it is any other day in their lives... and not rape women."
“There are a lot of different kinds of people here from all different backgrounds and temperaments,” said Tracy Keith, a member of Occupy D.C. “We still make it work, but unfortunately, as the organism grows, there are more and more differences. We don’t want needless escalation. If the police are required to be called, we’ll call them.” (2)
Oh geez, this one's a doozy. I didn't know that sexually assaulting women was now considered a different background or temperament. Or that it's simply one of those pesky differences that we just have to live with. And forgive me for needlessly escalating the situation and wanting to call the police after someone SEXUALLY ASSAULTED ME.
Protester Kyle Peterson said bad elements came into the camp from time to time."Some are here just for themselves to come and do what they want,'' he said. (3)
Again, this implies that the "bad elements" are coming from outside the camp and are not regular protesters. See response to #1
They have their own way of talking about what goes on at the camp, and it seems like everyone else does too. Nan told us that the young woman who had been assaulted last week was drunk, and that opinion turned against the man who allegedly assaulted her because she is white and he is black. (4)
Um, first of all, why does it matter that the young woman was drunk? Secondly, black men do rape white women, just like white men rape black women, white men rape white women, etc etc. I'm not denying that race didn't play a role here, I just thought we were past the days of folks assuming that black man = automatic sexual predator. I would like to point out that the same man was accused of assaulting not one but two women.
"We don't tell anyone," an organizer told the New York Post. "We handle it internally. I said too much already." (5)
Wow. They basically just said, "We don't report suspected crimes to the police." Not only are they not holding people accountable for alleged perpetration of sexual assault, they're essentially letting potential perpetrators continue to assault other people, if they so choose. Cool.
We're immersed in a culture in which misogyny and sexism are prevalent, where we receive f*ed up messages about sex and consent, and where the media has a tendency to SUCK when reporting on incidences of sexual assault (11 year old + NY Times ring a bell?), so these comments don't surprise me all that much. There are folks organizing to demand that Occupy sites be open and safe for all and folks who are doing good work to increase awareness as well as safety and security at Occupy sites.
However, we still have a lot of work to do, so let's get out there and shake things up.
Sources:
1. "Sexual assaults reported in 'Occupy' camps." November 3, 2011. Available at: http://abcnews.go.com/...
2. "Sexual assault, theft reported at Occupy camp." November 22, 2011. Available at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/...
3. "Sex-assault claim at protest camp." September 12, 2011. Available at: http://www.stuff.co.nz/...
4. "The truth about crime and sexual assault at Occupy Wall Street." November 8, 2011. Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/...
5. "Sexual assaults continue to plague 'Occupy' protests." October 31, 2011. Available at: http://dailycaller.com/...