Safe Passage Says Something at Project Unbreakable Event @ Umass Amherst

On Monday, November 3rd, Project Unbreakable presented at UMASS Amherst and Laura Penney, our Community Engagement Coordinator, had the honor of being asked to speak at the event. If you have not heard of Project Unbreakable before, here is a little information:

The mission of Project Unbreakable is to increase awareness of the issues surrounding sexual assault, child abuse, and domestic violence, and encourage the act of healing through art.
Created in October of 2011 by then 19 year old photographer Grace Brown, Project Unbreakable originally featured photos of sexual assault survivors holding posters with quotes from their attackers. In September, Project Unbreakable expanded to include photos from survivors of child abuse and domestic violence. Originally, Project Unbreakable was supposed to stay small – the main intention was to simple create awareness – but soon it was discovered that it provides a way of healing for violence survivors. Since the conception, Project Unbreakable has featured over four thousand photographs, both photos taken by Grace and submissions from all over the world.

We encourage you to visit their website, but also want to give a strong warning because while the images are incredible powerful, they can also be also very difficult to see. Please reach out to a counselor or hotline if you need to talk at any point.

Below is the transcript of the speech given at the event:

“Thank you so much for having me here tonight. I have been a huge fan of the work the Project Unbreakable has been doing for some time now, and feel truly honored to be at this event. I’m also very excited to have been given the opportunity to speak a bit about the work that my agency, Safe Passage, is also doing to give folks in the community a voice to speak out to prevent sexual and domestic violence. As I prepared to speak this evening, I spent some time looking at the countless photos on the Project Unbreakable website. Photos of amazing individuals who were sharing their stories and proving their strength to the world. These powerful images drew me in and I found myself connecting to each person who help up a sign and bravely told the world about their experience.

Reading over the words that had been spoken to each of the survivors was very difficult. It is always hard to see the ways that humans harm one another. Additionally, many of us don’t hear these stories regularly, because when it comes to sexual and domestic violence specifically, silence around experience is often the result. Speaking out, telling our stories as survivors is such a profound process, and can be a huge contribution to our own healing journeys. It also connects us with other survivors, letting us know we are not alone.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a feminist. And for as long as I can remember, I have been quite outspoken about that fact. Maybe growing up with a strong mother had something to do with it. Or maybe it has just been navigating the world we live in as a self-identified woman. Or maybe it is because of my own identity as a survivor of domestic and sexual violence. Or all of the above. And then some. Who knows, really? Whatever the reasons, I have consistently found myself entrenched in the issues of women’s rights, sexual assault, and domestic violence from an early age.

And that’s how I found myself at Safe Passage. For those of you who may not know, Safe Passage is Hampshire County’s domestic violence agency. We are based in downtown Northampton. We have counseling and advocacy services for adults and children, support groups, a 24-hour hotline, legal advocacy, and an emergency shelter among many other services. We are a small agency, but we serve many.

The work that my coworkers do every day saves lives. They help people plan out how to keep themselves and their children safe when they are facing danger in their home. Homes. Which should be the safest place for each of us. I have seen people transform when they find safety and are allowed the space to heal; I witness compassion and fortitude and resourcefulness, but most of all strength in the folks that come through our doors every day. This work is so important, so necessary. But I would like to imagine a world where it’s not necessary. Where events like this aren’t commemorating lives lost, or raising awareness around an issue that effects so many and is still a tremendous social issue, but are showings of solidarity and support to maintain communities that are free of violence.

At Safe Passage, I am the Community Engagement Coordinator. The work that I do on a daily basis is educating folks on the information and skills they need to become active agents of change. To help prevent violence in our communities. Our prevention program, Say Something, operates on one simple belief: that no matter who we are, what roles we play, who we come in contact with, each of us has the opportunity and ability to Say Something in our everyday lives that will help prevent interpersonal violence.

We know that one of the main tactics that abusers use to maintain their control is isolation; from friends, family, any sort of support network. They use isolation because it is difficult to speak out, seek help, and/or change your situation if you do not have the social supports. This work, the work to end domestic and sexual violence, is also often isolating. We often feel alone in our thoughts, feelings, experiences, and desires for a different kind of world. I don’t know about you folks, but I have, on more than one occasion been the only one in a group speaking up about the inappropriate joke that has been told, or the uncomfortable statement just said, but of course was not meant, because “I was only kidding”.

The importance of community is paramount in this work. And that is what we try to provide with Say Something. The proof that you are not alone in this world, feeling the way you do. That there are people all over who have had their own experiences and are committed to ending sexual and domestic violence. And while I scrolled through the Project Unbreakable Tumblr, that’s exactly the same feeling I had. Seeing the strength and solidarity that comes with speaking out and Saying Something. It’s truly powerful.

The statements that really jumped out at me on the website weren’t the things that were said during an assault, but the supportive words from friends, family, new partners, and community members that were so important to hear for many folks. This just further instills in me the importance of educating our communities to Say Something. Not only to interrupt violence when we see it, but to know what to say when responding to someone who discloses.

When we first developed the Say Something program at our agency, I put up this big board in the front of the office that said “Say Something…” and invited everyone who came to our office—staff, volunteers, clients, community members – to finish the sentiment. The visual of this was truly breathtaking. And if you want to see what the final product looks like, you can always visit our facebook or website. But here are some of the examples of the contributions:
 

Say Something:
• You may have been afraid to say this morning
• Loving
• True
• Because others may not be able to
• And you could change a life
• Hopeful
• Comforting
• And inspire others to say something too
• Encouraging
• About your experience
• Positive
• Because you have the power
• Brave
• Supportive
• About how violence has effected your life
• Amazing
• And then do something

As we all move through our daily lives, we have countless opportunities to Say Something. If we, as a community can shift our collective thinking to not tolerate language or behaviors that support domestic and sexual violence, we can start to establish a new culture where respect, tolerance, safety and love are the universal experiences of all. That’s the vision and hope that I hold onto. And that’s the vision and hope that I work every day towards. So, I am here tonight to honor the survivors who have spoken out, and invite you all to Say Something every chance you get. Become active agents for change in your day to day lives and become part of a larger community that will not stand for violence. Thank you all for being here and thank you for holding this cause in your hearts."


Laura Penney is the Community Engagement Coordinator at Safe Passage and the project director of the Say Something Prevention Initiative.

 

Stalking is Dangerous, NOT Sexy…or Everything That’s Wrong with Maroon 5’s “Animals”

Aviva is currently pursuing her MSW at Smith College, and is a former relief staff member at Safe Passage’s shelter program. She lives in Amherst with her partner and pet bearded dragon, and has a strong love/hate relationship with American popular culture.

As someone who spends a great deal of time working and building relationships with young people, I often find myself engaging with tween popular media – which I tend to broadly define as popular media consumed by tweens, whether or not that was the original intention. Tweens are the most reliable source of what is hip: which new social media site is trending and which artist is topping the charts. By virtue of living in our highly consumerist and technologically savvy society they know what capitalism wants them to know, whether or not they are developmentally or emotionally ready.

Which brings me to Maroon 5’s new hit single “Animals”. The music video for this song, which was only released this past August, currently has 127 million views on YouTube, and holds the number 4 spot on the Billboard Top 100 List. Clearly this song is gaining in widespread popularity, and more and more people are engaging with it either on the radio, Pandora, or some other Top 40s popular music site. What this really means though is that if you have or know of a young person in your life, chances are they have engaged with this song and/or music video.

While I don’t feel Adam Levine (the lead singer of Maroon 5) wrote this song with a 12-year-old in mind as his audience, it is important to remember that young people are exposed to all forms of popular culture on a daily basis, not just what was written with them in mind. As large consumers of social media and television programming, young people often find themselves in the presence of media that they may not fully understand or be emotionally mature enough to fully comprehend. So in an effort to help break down the wall of silence between adults who aren’t cool enough to consume popular media and the youth who are but don’t know what it is exactly that they are consuming, let’s start with a conversation about “Animals”.

However, before I launch into a more critical feminist analysis* of this new song and music video, I want to acknowledge the greatest barrier to our collective deeper conversations about the content our children consume: the song is catchy. I will admit that before I finally caught some of the lyrics and forced myself to watch the music video and really engage with this song’s content, I too was guilty of just letting it play on as background noise in my car on the way to work. When popular music is catchy and fun to dance to it is easier to blindly consume it, and not take the time to break down what messages artists are putting out there. This does a disservice to everyone in our society and helps to breed a culture of unchecked violence. Let’s break this silence by unpacking the content and cultural messages embedded within “Animals”, in the hopes of empowering adult consumers of popular media to have conversations with the young people in their lives about what they are really absorbing.

The video begins by rapidly cutting between images of a young, hypersexualized, traditionally feminine woman in a butcher shop, who is being watched by a man taking lots of photographs of her without her knowledge, and then developing them from inside the butcher shop’s hanging meat locker. Right away audiences are invited to engage in voyeurism along with the male protagonist and feel as though we too are stalking this young woman. The lyrics begin with “Baby I’m preying on you tonight/Hunt you down eat you alive/Just like animals, animals, like animals-mals/ Maybe you think that you can hide/I can smell your scent for miles/Just like animals, animals, like animals-mals”. Maroon 5’s Levine effortlessly makes the connection between preying on this young woman (played by his real life wife), and preying on animals to be killed and sold for their meat. While this is disturbing in and of itself, what I find even more horrifying is the justification for his violent actions as a man: that he has an animal “beast” desire within him that allows him to “hunt down” this woman, and that she can’t “deny” her attraction to be with someone that is going to harm her. Sounds a lot like male justification for intimate partner violence as not being able to help themselves, right?

From within Levine’s meat locker hideaway, he is seen looking at and developing hundreds of photographs of the woman he is watching, while simultaneously erotically touching the hanging carcasses; reminding us that meat equals woman. In one particularly unsettling scene, he is inside her apartment standing over her watching her sleep without her consent or knowledge of his presence. Meanwhile he sings “But you can’t stay away from me” and “But don’t deny the animal/That comes alive when I’m inside you”, justifying his actions and putting the onus of what he is doing back on her, someone who clearly wants to be stalked, hurt, and followed just to have a sexual tryst with her assailant. The video culminates with Levine and the woman he has been following having sex amidst the hanging meat, both completely naked, and covered in blood, leaving viewers questioning if within this fantasy the blood is animal or human.

What strikes me as most dangerous about this video and song versus other forms of media that are clearly violent against women, is the openness with which this video does nothing to hide its intentions and the message of the content. Women are meat. Meat is prey. Men are animals who can’t help but hunt prey. Men are animals who can’t help but hunt women. See how easy it was to draw that connection from this song and music video?

The Centers for Disease Control (2014) reports that 15.2% of women nationally have been victims of stalking at some point during their lives, that the perpetrators are almost exclusively male, and that the perpetrators are almost always someone with whom they had previously interacted with, either as a partner, family member, or acquaintance. Popular media like “Animals” helps to spread the message that stalking is erotic and sexy, especially since the entire narrative is Levine’s sexual fantasy of stalking (and potentially hurting) his real life wife. This then creates a national narrative that stalking is romantic and that men can’t help themselves from being drawn to the women (and sometimes men) in their lives, erasing the real danger behind stalking and its potential for breeding further violence.

Just to be clear: stalking is NOT sexy, it is NOT wanted, and it IS dangerous.

In order to change the national narrative around stalking, folks can start by engaging the young people and adults in their lives about the dangerous messages in “Animals”. Passively listening to this song and not stopping to have conversations about its content helps to continue to allow women to internalize that being stalked is sexy and that men should not feel guilty about their acts because they are biologically unavoidable. If we are going to change the way we talk about stalking and gendered violence as a society, it is especially important to call young people in, invite them to question the media they are consuming and the messages embedded within.

So the next time “Animals” comes on the radio, you hear it at a club, or the young person in your life is about to buy Maroon 5’s music, don’t just passively hum along to the catchy beat, and instead invite those around you to have a conversation about stalking and gendered violence. More than 50% of all women who are victims of stalking are under age 25 (CDC, 2014). Silence isn’t an option.

If you or someone you know is in need of help or resources regarding stalking, please visit these sites for more information:
http://www.victimsofcrime.org/our-programs/stalking-resource-center
http://stalkingawarenessmonth.org/about
http://www.loveisrespect.org/is-this-abuse/types-of-abuse/what-is-stalking

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*For the purposes of this article I am going to talk about men and women from a largely cis-gendered binary standpoint; however I would like to acknowledge that there are many different forms of gendered violence that exist outside of this paradigm.

The Day My Son Learned That Princesses Are For Girls

Erica Merten is a graduate student, mother, partner, counselor, advocate, cat-herder, and lover of all things pomegranate-flavored.

I remember the day my three year old son learned that princesses are for girls. It was in the context of his asking for play jewelry and dress-up clothes for his upcoming fourth birthday. He informed me, matter-of-factly, that he no longer wanted princess dresses for his birthday because princesses are, in fact, for girls and he is a boy.

“But I thought dress-up clothes were for pretending,” I asked, innocently.

“But I can’t pretend to be a princess because princesses are for girls,” he responded, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

What struck me the most about this exchange was that he couldn’t identify to me where he had learned that he was no longer permitted to enjoy things that were designated by society as “for girls.” He calmly informed me that he “just knew” something that had shifted for him within a matter of days. The child who unapologetically announces that his favorite colors are pink and purple, even at the admonishment of his five-year-old cousin, had somehow suddenly learned new rules. It made me think about the messages he and other children are receiving about what they are or aren’t allowed to enjoy, even within the sanctity of make-believe. It made me wonder how much a parent or concerned person in a child’s life can affect this development when there is so much subconsciously taught in our culture about a carefully-guarded gender binary. What narrative are they growing up to retell?

We’re all familiar with the pink aisle. Rows of dolls with made up faces, dresses and jewelry, all a vibrant shade of pink that stands out starkly in a sea of different colored aisles. And the grey and blue toned aisle of weapons, machines, and fighters. The way that we market to children affects the playground politics that enforce these rules even as young as preschool. In our language, we unknowingly enforce ideas of what we perceive to be a child’s gender and the attributes that each gender is meant to embody in our society. When we gush about how pretty and cute a little girl’s outfit is or praise a little boy for growing so big and strong, we teach them the narrow definition by which society will deem them appropriate. If at any point in their lives they should fail to meet these strict criteria or don’t identify with either gender, studies on bullying, intimate partner violence, and self-image have shown that the results can be devastating.

So what can we do?

Start by having the conversation. Be aware of the language you use when talking to children. What adjectives do you find yourself using more when speaking with girls? What qualities do you tend to encourage in the boys you know? Challenge yourself, and challenge those children, to think outside that binary. Someday that little boy might want to be a father; why shouldn’t he practice by playing with dolls? This little girl wants to know how things work; why not get her a science experiment kit for her birthday? Most importantly, speak up! When you hear children on the playground enforcing the strict rules they’re learning on TV and in the toy aisles, gently encourage them to think outside the box. What makes a color for girls or for boys? Modelling goes a long way in teaching children that it’s acceptable for them to break that mold. Intervention on the personal level with the kids you interact with every day can raise a generation that thinks more deeply about these questions.

While I inwardly began to mourn the newly discovered loss of my child’s freedom of expression, I outwardly asked him what kind of dress-up clothes he would like then, if princess dresses were off the list.

“I want fairy dresses,” he stated emphatically, “Fairies are for boys AND girls. With crowns. And earrings.”

Fairies it is, then.