Speaker 1: What do you do when life doesn't go according to
Speaker 1: plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question, now, what sexual assault is an amous communication?
Speaker 1: There's been research indicating that for decades. It's very very
Speaker 1: clear sexual assault happens with the knowledge of a perpetrator.
Speaker 1: People do not commit rape by accident, and so to
Speaker 1: some degree, this education on no means no. It is
Speaker 1: kind of missing the point because people understand already, and
Speaker 1: what's more likely to happen is the perpetrators dismiss a
Speaker 1: no as unimportant or being COI right. The no means yes,
Speaker 1: you know, oh no, and be shy and coy about
Speaker 1: you know about it when you are in fact uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and shy and right perpetrators are just looking for a
Speaker 1: way that they can rationalize, but they no means yes,
Speaker 1: if they get in trouble, that's a more accurate description
Speaker 1: of what they're thinking. Right, and so coyness is one
Speaker 1: of those examples to say, oh, she didn't mean it,
Speaker 1: she was just being blurty. But not only works because
Speaker 1: we let it work. Right. If we stop letting that
Speaker 1: rationalization work, it goes away. My guest today is doctor
Speaker 1: Nicole Badera. Doctor Berdera is a sociologist, an author, and
Speaker 1: a leading researcher on sexual violence, it's causes, its lasting
Speaker 1: impact on sir fivers, and what we can all do
Speaker 1: to begin to address the problem. Our conversation was a
Speaker 1: personal one. I was first introduced to her work after
Speaker 1: I shared my personal experience with sexual assault in the
Speaker 1: Hulu documentary Pretty Baby, and I found myself turning to
Speaker 1: her to continue to help me make sense of my
Speaker 1: own trauma. I am so grateful for the research that
Speaker 1: women like her do to illuminate the pervasiveness of this issue.
Speaker 1: They really do remind us all that it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be this way. Speaking openly about sexual violence takes courage,
Speaker 1: it took me years to do so, and healing, i
Speaker 1: have to say, is a lifelong process. But our stories,
Speaker 1: they all have value. They allow us to take up space,
Speaker 1: heal and hopefully set the stage for a safer future.
Speaker 1: So here is doctor Nicole Badera. I have to just
Speaker 1: say that your insight really helped me so much how
Speaker 1: to share my story and how to continuously deal with
Speaker 1: some of my more personal feelings about my journey. So
Speaker 1: to give listeners just a little bit of context, would
Speaker 1: you tell them who you are and what you do? Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me on. I'm a sociologist.
Speaker 1: I've been studying sexual violence for the better part of
Speaker 1: a decade, especially how organizations and our friends and family members,
Speaker 1: the people that were around in society can make it
Speaker 1: seem normal when really sexual violence is very traumatic and
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be normal in our society. And these days,
Speaker 1: I've been dedicating as much of my time as possible
Speaker 1: to putting that research into action and helping people find
Speaker 1: the power that they do have and use it to
Speaker 1: end sexual violence. Well, it's very very important work, and
Speaker 1: doing this documentary was obviously it entailed a great deal,
Speaker 1: but it was the first time I ever spoke publicly,
Speaker 1: you know, about my experience, and as I say it,
Speaker 1: I'm interested that I say my experience because I still
Speaker 1: find it hard to say my experience with sexual assault
Speaker 1: or my experience with rape. That's a really common experience.
Speaker 1: A lot of survivors are uncomfortable with words like rape
Speaker 1: or sexual assault, and part of that has to do
Speaker 1: with we've gotten a lot of misinformation for I mean
Speaker 1: really all of American history about what sexual assault is.
Speaker 1: For example, most of us were taught that it's a
Speaker 1: stranger jumping out of the bushes, which is actually a
Speaker 1: racialized myth that was used to justify lynching, and it
Speaker 1: has absolutely no connection to what sexual assault looks like.
Speaker 1: The most sexual assault is perpetrated by people we know
Speaker 1: and trust who just treated us differently. Usually perpetrators are
Speaker 1: people that we never expected would treat us that way,
Speaker 1: and that can make it really hard for a lot
Speaker 1: of survivors to recognize their experience as violent and as traumatic,
Speaker 1: and it leads a lot of people to blame themselves.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the word violence, what that can
Speaker 1: look like? Yeah. Absolutely. When we think about sexual assault,
Speaker 1: most people think about it as having sex you don't
Speaker 1: want to have, which is one piece. The more accurate
Speaker 1: definition is losing control over your own body, losing autonomy,
Speaker 1: and that can happen in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: One of the ones that people don't know very much
Speaker 1: about is through coercion. So for example, if a perpetrator
Speaker 1: uses their position of power to get you to agree
Speaker 1: to do something that you wouldn't have otherwise, if they're
Speaker 1: maybe suggesting you might get a job if you perform
Speaker 1: a sexual act, or even smaller things like if they
Speaker 1: bring you into a place that you're not familiar with
Speaker 1: and you don't know how to leave that building without
Speaker 1: someone escorting you out, and they make it seem like
Speaker 1: they're not going to let you leave until after you
Speaker 1: have done what they want you to do. That's something
Speaker 1: I hear a lot of my work is on college campuses,
Speaker 1: and you hear that with dorms a lot a sense
Speaker 1: of I actually can't leave this dorm unless someone has
Speaker 1: a key card to let me out, and seemed like
Speaker 1: the fastest way out was to do what they wanted.
Speaker 1: And in those scenarios, it's kind of what you're describing
Speaker 1: where people say, you know it was violent, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't what I thought violence would feel like. It's hard
Speaker 1: to interpret the situation, but the violence, it may not
Speaker 1: seem violent because you're not being punched or something is
Speaker 1: that's what we learned, or your hands aren't necessarily tied
Speaker 1: or whatever we've been told, But the violation is still there.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's where I definitely struggled is
Speaker 1: admitting that it was a violation. So how do you
Speaker 1: help people recognize what happened is in fact violation if
Speaker 1: they don't scream No. One of the ways I do
Speaker 1: that in my work is to just think about what
Speaker 1: was the impact of that interaction on you. If you
Speaker 1: did have enough control to just be able to walk,
Speaker 1: you know, stand up and walk out of a room,
Speaker 1: then you wouldn't have experienced that loss of autonomy and
Speaker 1: you wouldn't experience the trauma that comes with that. And
Speaker 1: so often it can be identifying those traumatic symptoms if
Speaker 1: I'm now more anxious, I'm not comfortable around this person
Speaker 1: in the way I used to be anymore. Something that
Speaker 1: comes up a lot for a traumatic symptom is changes
Speaker 1: in memory or being able to access memories differently, not
Speaker 1: not having complete control over remembering what happened, maybe dissociating
Speaker 1: in the moment, so recognizing some of those traumatic symptoms
Speaker 1: to say, regardless of how you wanted to believe you
Speaker 1: would react, your body is reacting in such a way
Speaker 1: that it's in fight, flight or freeze mode, which a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't know. That's the most common way
Speaker 1: women react as sexual assault is just to freeze and
Speaker 1: lose the ability to fight back or to stand up
Speaker 1: and walk out of a room. And recognizing that your
Speaker 1: body is reacting that way can help you understand, Oh,
Speaker 1: that actually was upsetting to me, That actually was traumatic
Speaker 1: for me. And the fight or freeze instead of fight
Speaker 1: or flight, you don't have the ability to flight, to fly, No,
Speaker 1: you're totally frozen, and that can lead a lot of
Speaker 1: survivors to self blame, to say why did I stay?
Speaker 1: Why didn't I get up and leave? I once interviewed
Speaker 1: a survivor who assumes that she must have had way
Speaker 1: more to drink than she thought, because she said, I
Speaker 1: always thought I would have been someone who would have
Speaker 1: fought back. You don't think about it. You think of
Speaker 1: yourself as being inept or weak, or somehow not capable
Speaker 1: of taking care of yourself, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: people do focus a lot on the emotional effects, but
Speaker 1: there's tremendous physical effects, which I think is so interesting
Speaker 1: because I don't even think I connected with that. I
Speaker 1: was too busy blaming myself. But can you talk about
Speaker 1: some of those more physical effects. Yeah, So in the moment,
Speaker 1: like we've been kind of talking around, the most common
Speaker 1: response for specifically women, queer and transurvivors is to freeze,
Speaker 1: is to lose the ability to respond until the act
Speaker 1: of violence is over. And then during that period of time,
Speaker 1: since your body is having a trauma response, it's going
Speaker 1: to do things like store memories differently, so you might
Speaker 1: not have a clear memory of what happened, or you
Speaker 1: might have to restore those memories in a different way.
Speaker 1: For a lot of victim's sense of smell will be heightened.
Speaker 1: Specific really tactile memories will be the things that will
Speaker 1: be easier to access than the type of sort of
Speaker 1: linear storytelling memories that we're more used to using. And
Speaker 1: then in the aftermath, we hear a lot about stories
Speaker 1: of this sort of PTSD response where you might have
Speaker 1: triggers or flashbacks where all of a sudden you're feeling
Speaker 1: all of those same feelings, and they can come from anything.
Speaker 1: They can come from you know, if a perpetrator was
Speaker 1: chewing a certain type of gum and you smell that
Speaker 1: type of gum, that might be when you have one
Speaker 1: of those flashbacks or triggers. But there are a lot
Speaker 1: of other reactions to anxiety and depression, a lot of
Speaker 1: again those same physical reactions where you might have difficulties
Speaker 1: storing memories or understanding what's happening around you, being able
Speaker 1: to take in a lot of complex and overwhelming stimuli.
Speaker 1: So it is the physical manifestations are confusing, and I
Speaker 1: think it can make really hard for survivors, especially if
Speaker 1: they identify a strong, capable, independent women, to recognize what
Speaker 1: happened to them is violent, because they say, oh, that
Speaker 1: version of me that was happening in the moment, I
Speaker 1: don't even know who that is. Well, there's different things
Speaker 1: at stake. You talk a lot about the victim shaming,
Speaker 1: or the threat of the loss of a job, or
Speaker 1: the threat of what would have been cancelation back in
Speaker 1: the day if you actually confront it, Can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean you're talking
Speaker 1: about all the kinds of things that survivors are nervous about.
Speaker 1: For example, if you are a college student and your
Speaker 1: perpetrator is in classes with you, they're in your same major,
Speaker 1: confronting the violence can make you have a lot of
Speaker 1: really scary decisions ahead of you, like do I need
Speaker 1: to drop out of school? Do I need to get
Speaker 1: out of this class? And that has to do not
Speaker 1: with the survivor, but because of our social responses that
Speaker 1: our universities don't have the resources available, don't even have
Speaker 1: a way to remove a perpetrator from an individual class
Speaker 1: so that a survivor can continue their education. It's the
Speaker 1: same thing in a workplace. But one of the percentages
Speaker 1: of times that the perpetrator even has any accountability on
Speaker 1: the average American college campus, one perpetrator is expelled every
Speaker 1: three years. It's so incredibly rare, and that's a new statistic.
Speaker 1: It's something we didn't know until a few years ago.
Speaker 1: But it's true that even if you go through all
Speaker 1: of these mechanisms of accountability, there's a good chance that
Speaker 1: you're just going to end up even more hurt. And
Speaker 1: it's one of the reasons why a lot of survivors
Speaker 1: choose never to name their perpetrator publicly, because it's easier
Speaker 1: to get support as a survivor if people don't rush
Speaker 1: to the defense of your perpetrator instead, if it doesn't
Speaker 1: become kind of a circus around protecting that particular man.
Speaker 1: And we do find that when survivors share their experiences
Speaker 1: and name a perpetrator, they still tend to be deeply
Speaker 1: mistreated in our society and victim shamed. And then still
Speaker 1: then there is no positive outcome. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: think those people who are in college are getting out
Speaker 1: and just continuing the behavior. Yeah, they definitely are, not
Speaker 1: all of them. One thing that we know about perpetrators
Speaker 1: is that there aren't a ton of them that will
Speaker 1: perpetrate in all scenarios that they tend to be responsive
Speaker 1: to social context. Perpetrators perpetrate when it will be rewarded,
Speaker 1: when they're in an industry where bragging about that type
Speaker 1: of violence will be seen favorably, like a badge of honor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a badge of honor. It's like a masculinity contest.
Speaker 1: And so when they're in those spaces, they're more likely
Speaker 1: to perpetrate. If they're in a place where that would
Speaker 1: be considered stigmatized behavior, and some want to say, Wow,
Speaker 1: I don't want to work with a guy who does that.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to hire him, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: promote him. Then we see a lot of men are
Speaker 1: a lot less likely to perpetrate. But it's true that
Speaker 1: these contexts on a college campus. They're pretty similar everywhere actually,
Speaker 1: and that's because again, perpetrators are not complete strangers. There
Speaker 1: are people who are deeply embedded in our lives, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people will rush to their defense. There's
Speaker 1: so much to unpack there, because I want to know
Speaker 1: why people rush to the defense of the perpetrator. What
Speaker 1: is in our culture or in our psyche that rushes
Speaker 1: to that when you feel like it should instantly be
Speaker 1: to the victim. I think that this has been one
Speaker 1: of the really hard lessons of this me too moment,
Speaker 1: that when the me too hashtagment viral, there was an
Speaker 1: assumption of if everybody just knew that sexual assault was
Speaker 1: so common, well, then it would end immediately, we would
Speaker 1: do something about it finally, And what we found instead
Speaker 1: is that a lot of the time people don't think
Speaker 1: sexual violence is a good reason for a perpetrator to
Speaker 1: face any consequences, and we shift those consequences back onto
Speaker 1: the victim. Something I find in my work a lot,
Speaker 1: and I've interviewed people who are tasked with adjudicating these
Speaker 1: cases and deciding what to do and who to give
Speaker 1: consequences to. Something they'll say is, well, the damage to
Speaker 1: the victim is already done, and now the only person
Speaker 1: who matters is the perpetrator. And it's the sort of
Speaker 1: twisted logic of one ruined life is inevitable, and two
Speaker 1: ruined lives would be worse. So instead, there's this pushing
Speaker 1: of the consequences of the sexual assault back onto the victim, saying, well,
Speaker 1: the victim's already traumatized, they're already struggling. We'll just stop
Speaker 1: working with them, we'll stop hiring them, we'll stop keeping
Speaker 1: them in classes, whatever it might be, to focus on
Speaker 1: keeping the perpetrator protected. And a lot of it comes
Speaker 1: from there's this fantastic concept by a philosopher called hympathy.
Speaker 1: So that's empathy but with him at the front, and
Speaker 1: it's great. And the excessive empathy that we give men,
Speaker 1: particularly when they are in competition with women for who
Speaker 1: will receive empathy, and so it plays a lot into
Speaker 1: sexual assault cases. How do we then go without change
Speaker 1: changing those mindsets and talking about the lasting effects of
Speaker 1: sexual violence and how people have to work to overcome them. Myself,
Speaker 1: it's taken me over twenty years. Yeah, where does the
Speaker 1: change start? I think we have to confront a lot
Speaker 1: of the rate myths that still exists in our society.
Speaker 1: So we tend to still think that when victims come
Speaker 1: forward with their stories, that they're being vindictive, that they're
Speaker 1: trying to ruin lives, and that could not be farther
Speaker 1: from the truth. Most of the time, when victims come
Speaker 1: forward about their stories, they just want to tell their
Speaker 1: life story from beginning to end and violence was a
Speaker 1: part of it. Or they have a reason that they're
Speaker 1: speaking out. They either want to protect other potential victims.
Speaker 1: They know that this person is still in a position
Speaker 1: of power that they're abusing and that's why they want
Speaker 1: them to lose that position of power, which isn't a punishment,
Speaker 1: it's a fair consequence for an abuse of power, or
Speaker 1: they're often still facing violence from that person themselves. I
Speaker 1: think that was one of the most surprising things to
Speaker 1: me about getting into this work is how many of
Speaker 1: the victims, when deciding to come forward, just wanted the
Speaker 1: violence to stop. And unfortunately, when victims come forward, especially
Speaker 1: very publicly, that tends to be an increase of violence,
Speaker 1: not just from the perpetrator who starts to retaliate, but
Speaker 1: from the people who are fans of that perpetrator, who
Speaker 1: are friends and family of that perpetrator, colleagues of that perpetrator,
Speaker 1: who rush to their defense and often harass and disparage
Speaker 1: the victim. It's interesting, I've heard often, well, why did
Speaker 1: it take them so long to talk about it? Clearly
Speaker 1: it wasn't that much of a big deal, and the
Speaker 1: truth of the matter is it's taken that long to
Speaker 1: even face what happened. Yeah, it can be really confusing
Speaker 1: because a lot of these acts of violence, it's a
Speaker 1: lot more common than people think, and because it's so common,
Speaker 1: it can start to feel normal, even though it shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting in our society because we really do
Speaker 1: allow so much space for people to cope with things
Speaker 1: like death or illness or any source of other types
Speaker 1: of grief, but we don't actually make the same accommodations
Speaker 1: for survivors of sexual assault who are coping with many
Speaker 1: of this, I mean, there are many of the same feelings.
Speaker 1: They're sort of relegated to doing it in silence. They
Speaker 1: have to act as if their life is normal. How
Speaker 1: do we carve out that space for survivors to feel
Speaker 1: that they have the room to be heard or to
Speaker 1: at least come to terms with how they feel about something.
Speaker 1: There are few ways to answer that question. I'm going
Speaker 1: to answer it a couple of ways. So the first
Speaker 1: one is about in our inner personal lives, how do
Speaker 1: we support survivors that we know and love, and how
Speaker 1: do we give them enough space to process a sexual
Speaker 1: assault that you know, it's very similar to grief. They're
Speaker 1: sort of stages of feeling sexual assault and feeling that
Speaker 1: new survivor identity. Right, and denial is a big one.
Speaker 1: Often for a lot of friends and family of survivors,
Speaker 1: they don't get past the denial piece. They say, oh,
Speaker 1: you said it wasn't that bad when it happens, so
Speaker 1: I don't want to support you. Well, they don't know
Speaker 1: how to answer. They don't a lot of the time
Speaker 1: if you've talked to someone about the situation, if at all,
Speaker 1: they don't know how to respond to you. Right, and
Speaker 1: often they're trying to fit your experience into their narrative
Speaker 1: of what a sexual assault should be, which might not
Speaker 1: be inclusive of your experience of sexual assault. Because the
Speaker 1: narrative we have about what rape is is pretty far
Speaker 1: off from what it actually looks like most of the time,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of people are pretty poorly equipped
Speaker 1: to be able to not only respond the right way
Speaker 1: in the moment, but then a lot don't even have interest. Right.
Speaker 1: You would want people, if they don't know what to
Speaker 1: say in the moment, to jump on the internet and
Speaker 1: to find some good resources about how to be supportive.
Speaker 1: And you know, the thing is, it's actually not that complicated,
Speaker 1: and sexual assault is traumatic because of a loss of autonomy.
Speaker 1: To heal survivors, they just need autonomy back. And so
Speaker 1: when someone who you know and love has experienced sexual assault,
Speaker 1: all you really have to do is just let them
Speaker 1: lead the way, validate their experiences, listen to them, tell
Speaker 1: them that it wasn't their fault, and that however they
Speaker 1: want to think about it is okay, and it's okay
Speaker 1: if it changes over time too. It's all about giving
Speaker 1: survivors control back. But we're not really comfortable with it.
Speaker 1: Especially because people kind of go back and forth in
Speaker 1: their understandings of what took place. I just want to
Speaker 1: say one more time, that's normal in a society that
Speaker 1: treats sexual violence as no big deal when you're getting
Speaker 1: all of these social reactions where some people are going
Speaker 1: to say, this is a really big deal and you
Speaker 1: deserve support, but then someone else the next day might say, well,
Speaker 1: I think you're overreacting. We can't expect survivors to not
Speaker 1: internalize any of that. And how does that work with
Speaker 1: families because or specifically our partners or our children, how
Speaker 1: do we talk about our experiences to families, because that's
Speaker 1: a whole other area that can be very disruptive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that can be one of the hardest places
Speaker 1: to talk about this type of violence. For sure. I've
Speaker 1: done research with queer women survivors and for them talking
Speaker 1: to their families about it is consistently one of the
Speaker 1: worst experiences they have following a sexual assault. And so
Speaker 1: one of the things I'd recommend to survivors is just
Speaker 1: to trust your gut. If you think someone's going to
Speaker 1: be supportive, then that's who you should go to for support.
Speaker 1: If you get a sense that they won't be and
Speaker 1: you don't want to tell them, you're not obligated to
Speaker 1: tell them. And then if you're going to be the
Speaker 1: supportive family member, the thing you need to do is
Speaker 1: again be patient, give it lots of time, allow someone
Speaker 1: to go through the different iterations, and be open to education,
Speaker 1: go seek it out on your own. But also when
Speaker 1: you think about a partner and how sexual wilds can
Speaker 1: disrupt intimacy, that could be a problem that both people
Speaker 1: are working on. We have tendency and intimate relationships. To
Speaker 1: say that, well, the survivor is the one who has trauma,
Speaker 1: so they have an obligation to heal and fix their
Speaker 1: trauma so that they can be perfect for their partner again,
Speaker 1: but that's really damaging. It should go the other way.
Speaker 1: It should say, oh, my partner has trauma, they're going
Speaker 1: to need adjustments. Our relationship is going to look different now.
Speaker 1: Really responsive partners can notice when their partner who is
Speaker 1: a survivor is reacting a certain ways, getting stressed out,
Speaker 1: as getting triggered, and so to look for those signs
Speaker 1: of a trigger and say, hey, let's take a beat here,
Speaker 1: let's talk through it. And to be really proactive this
Speaker 1: shouldn't fall all on survivors to heal themselves. The people
Speaker 1: who are closest to us should facilitate that healing and
Speaker 1: create safe spaces for us. I was not prepared for
Speaker 1: how my children would respond to learning about my assault.
Speaker 1: What did you find the most challenging about it? Well,
Speaker 1: that I had missed the opportunity to prepare them. The
Speaker 1: first thing I felt it was a unfortunate and I
Speaker 1: wasn't proud of that moment. I for some reason didn't
Speaker 1: think that I would need it. And yet they felt
Speaker 1: absolutely confronted by this, and they felt sort of blindsided
Speaker 1: by it. One of them did in particular, and there
Speaker 1: was a mixture of protectiveness and anger, and I had
Speaker 1: to deal with each of those pieces as a mother
Speaker 1: but also as the victim. And I really, I really
Speaker 1: had to work on really approaching it and speaking to
Speaker 1: them very personally and speaking them as to the wise.
Speaker 1: And you know, it made me feel so it made
Speaker 1: me feel like I was a bad mother, because how
Speaker 1: could I not have prepared. I've prepared my children for
Speaker 1: so much in life, and hear they're blindsided and they're
Speaker 1: seeing something and one daughter had guessed something like this
Speaker 1: had happened and had sort of really confronted me, and
Speaker 1: so I talked about it to her privately. I did
Speaker 1: not bring in the other child and thought, for some reason,
Speaker 1: because our life was so healthy and happy today, that
Speaker 1: it would somehow make not what happened to me okay,
Speaker 1: but make hersy that I've worked through it. I think
Speaker 1: the relationship between parents and children can be so challenging
Speaker 1: because there are such a thing Yeah, obviously there are
Speaker 1: such intense power dynamics involved where mothers in particular are
Speaker 1: under so much pressure, And a conversation that I have
Speaker 1: with mothers a lot around sexual assaults is how do
Speaker 1: I prepare my children to make sure they won't get
Speaker 1: sexual assaulted? And one of the most difficult things we
Speaker 1: have to accept is, well, since sexual assault isn't the
Speaker 1: fault of the victim, the victim can't prevent sexual assault.
Speaker 1: There are things victims can do to resist, and maybe
Speaker 1: they'll be able to do it in that situation, and
Speaker 1: maybe they won't. But a lot of the time, when
Speaker 1: we go to our daughters and we say here's a
Speaker 1: list of things you should do to prevent a sexual assault,
Speaker 1: what they hear is you're blaming me. You think it's
Speaker 1: my fault. You think if something happens to me, it'll
Speaker 1: be my fault, and so one of the you know,
Speaker 1: it comes from a good place, but the sense of, oh,
Speaker 1: we actually need to take a step back, and a
Speaker 1: lot of mothers who will say those things to their children.
Speaker 1: It comes from a place of this is what I
Speaker 1: wish I could have done in the moment when something
Speaker 1: bad happened to me. It's so interesting because the documentary
Speaker 1: is about the oversexualization of young women in our culture,
Speaker 1: and I'm living with two daughters who their world is
Speaker 1: about that, and yet it's on their terms, so there
Speaker 1: is something more empowering. But you still have to protect them,
Speaker 1: or at least inform them that it's still out there.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the line that's really hard to walk,
Speaker 1: is to be able to say sexual violence is real,
Speaker 1: if it happens to you, it's not your fault. And
Speaker 1: then I think it's hard for us to recognize that
Speaker 1: it really doesn't matter what the victim was wearing that
Speaker 1: sexual violence, that's not where it comes from, and that's
Speaker 1: where we've been told that it comes from, and what
Speaker 1: we're protecting our own kids. Right, there's the sense of
Speaker 1: I want to throw any tool at you that might
Speaker 1: possibly help, and I've been told by so many other
Speaker 1: people this might possibly help, so let's try it. But
Speaker 1: we've been misled some of the stuff. There actually are
Speaker 1: some things that can help girls prevent sexual assault, and
Speaker 1: some of my favorite things about these approaches is that
Speaker 1: they don't lead victims to blame themselves if they do
Speaker 1: get sexually assaulted. But the most helpful thing that we
Speaker 1: can do is help girls and young women know what
Speaker 1: sexual assault actually looks like. Here's how to recognize that
Speaker 1: someone is pushing your boundaries. Because actually, women are really
Speaker 1: good if they feel that people will support them when
Speaker 1: they walk away. They're really good at recognizing those signs
Speaker 1: and walking away, but only if they feel like no
Speaker 1: one will get them in trouble for it. Only if
Speaker 1: they feel like people afterwards will say, it's totally fine
Speaker 1: that you don't like that guy at that party, and
Speaker 1: I don't think you're a jerk for walking away. But
Speaker 1: often girls hear the opposite, right, it's like he was
Speaker 1: being nice, Why wouldn't you talk to him? Well, it's
Speaker 1: a very hard thing to do, and it just feels
Speaker 1: like we're so far away from getting there where you've
Speaker 1: talked about campuses, but what about when it's happening in
Speaker 1: the home. There are a lot of things we can
Speaker 1: do when talking to children. I'm going to answer this
Speaker 1: question a couple of ways too, when talking to our
Speaker 1: children about sexual violence. One is to help them recognize
Speaker 1: the signs of coercion and the signs that they're feeling
Speaker 1: uncomfortable really early, to say, if you're finding yourself saying
Speaker 1: and doing things that don't align with what you wish
Speaker 1: you were saying and doing, even on a small scale,
Speaker 1: that's a good time to leave. We can also model
Speaker 1: that really good behavior by really small things like not
Speaker 1: making kids hug a family member when they don't want to,
Speaker 1: not forcing them to smile on a photo if they
Speaker 1: don't want to. Another one, and this one's really important
Speaker 1: for violent relationships in particular, and to protect girls against
Speaker 1: violent relationships. Let them not treat men in the household
Speaker 1: as authority figures. So especially once they start to get older,
Speaker 1: when they're teenagers, if they get into a big argument
Speaker 1: with their dad, they need to be able to walk
Speaker 1: away and slam the door and have that be respected.
Speaker 1: They need to know that they are not obligated to
Speaker 1: fix a man's feelings, and that they have to stay
Speaker 1: there until a man tells them they're allowed to leave.
Speaker 1: It's so small, but I think a lot of us,
Speaker 1: if we think about the way we were raised or
Speaker 1: the households that we live in now, we would say, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know that we do that. Actually I think
Speaker 1: we do say that as a sign of respect, you
Speaker 1: have to stay and see the argument through, as opposed
Speaker 1: to recognizing you always have the right to leave. You
Speaker 1: always have the right to leave, that would be helpful.
Speaker 1: It's also really difficult when you've spent a great deal
Speaker 1: of time with much, much, much younger children. You know,
Speaker 1: we've told our kids it's a sign of respect to
Speaker 1: not ignore me and walk away, that we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about this situation. So it's got to be really
Speaker 1: hard to balance. It is weird to go from you're
Speaker 1: a child who you can't make medical decisions for yourself, right, like,
Speaker 1: that's just one of the things that I have to
Speaker 1: do that for you, to then saying oh, you have
Speaker 1: autonomy and you can make decisions I disagree with. We
Speaker 1: can't just flip a switch overnight, And so thinking about
Speaker 1: how to do that in sort of gradations, and so
Speaker 1: one of them might be all right, you're getting to
Speaker 1: an age where I do think it's okay if you
Speaker 1: want to walk away from an argument. But here's how
Speaker 1: to walk away respectfully. And one more question about children.
Speaker 1: What if a child does come to you and explains
Speaker 1: they're being abused, what is the best or most appropriate
Speaker 1: way a parent can respond. Yeah, this is the other
Speaker 1: way I wanted to answer your question, actually, and top
Speaker 1: of the list is just believe them. We have this
Speaker 1: sense that children don't know what's happening and they don't
Speaker 1: know what's good for them. But children are very reliable
Speaker 1: narrators of their experiences of sexual abuse, and if they
Speaker 1: say something has happened to them, then something has happened
Speaker 1: to them. And as a parent, what you should do
Speaker 1: is jump to their defense. And you would be astonished
Speaker 1: by how rarely that happens at Oh. No, they're just
Speaker 1: wanting attention, right, that's what people say. They're just craving attention,
Speaker 1: or you know, often when we think about who the
Speaker 1: abusers usually are in families, it's usually men who are
Speaker 1: very close to the children. So it can be a parent,
Speaker 1: a stepparent, a grandparent and uncle somebody like that is
Speaker 1: usually men, but it's not always men. But there is
Speaker 1: a sense of, you know, I've heard from survivors I've interviewed,
Speaker 1: a sense of like, oh, you just don't like your
Speaker 1: new stepfather, like you're just trying to get him removed
Speaker 1: from the family, and there's this dismissiveness again, getting back
Speaker 1: to all those same rape myths about why victims would
Speaker 1: choose to come forward. Well, if a child is coming
Speaker 1: to you to say that they've been abused, they want
Speaker 1: the violence to stop. That's why they're coming forward. Something
Speaker 1: people are really reluctant to do, when we shouldn't be
Speaker 1: reluctant to do, is to give victims rewards for coming forward.
Speaker 1: People think it will create this world of false allegations,
Speaker 1: and that couldn't be farther from the truth. But when
Speaker 1: a victim comes comes to you and says that they
Speaker 1: have been sexually abused, one of the things you can
Speaker 1: reward them with is to say, I want our relationship
Speaker 1: to get better after this. I want to be closer
Speaker 1: to you after this. I want you to feel like
Speaker 1: you can come to me with more things. The conversation
Speaker 1: and how to support a survivor doesn't always have to
Speaker 1: be about the abuse. It can sometimes be spending a
Speaker 1: nice day together and listening to them talk about what
Speaker 1: else matters in their lives, And those conversations actually matter
Speaker 1: just as much, if not more, then the conversations that
Speaker 1: are about abuse specifically. One of the other reasons victims
Speaker 1: hesitate to come forward is they worry that no one
Speaker 1: will ever want to talk to them about anything other
Speaker 1: than the abuse. Ever. Again, I can identify with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so to say this is just a piece of
Speaker 1: who you are, I recognize that there's still so much
Speaker 1: more to you, and I want to get to know
Speaker 1: those pieces of you can be really really helpful too.
Speaker 1: So much that you've said that I think is going
Speaker 1: to help so many people. I know. My talking about
Speaker 1: my experience has just opened up conversations and so much,
Speaker 1: so many more conversations than I even anticipated. Why did
Speaker 1: you decide to do what you do because it's a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I came into this work for the reason a lot
Speaker 1: of us do, which is I have some personal experiences
Speaker 1: that made me really kind of horrified by what the
Speaker 1: sort of traditional answer was, right, And I had some
Speaker 1: questions about sexual violence that I just didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: want the answer to be it's the victim's fault. And
Speaker 1: so that's why I got into this field and I
Speaker 1: continue to do it because I actually think it's really hopeful.
Speaker 1: There's something pretty exciting about realizing that the solutions to
Speaker 1: sexual violence are pretty clearly laid out in front of us,
Speaker 1: and we just need to be brave enough to invoke them.
Speaker 1: But then the other reason is because of conversations like
Speaker 1: this one that a big part of that is validating survivors,
Speaker 1: is making sexual violence less damaging by survivors. No, I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that sexual violence is used in
Speaker 1: patriarchal societies is because it does make gender inequality worse.
Speaker 1: It makes victims instead if we think it will radicalize
Speaker 1: victims and it'll make victims more feminist, but a lot
Speaker 1: of the time it does the opposite. It leads to
Speaker 1: this deep internalized misogyny that can lead victims to say, oh,
Speaker 1: don't be like me, you shouldn't do X, Y and Z.
Speaker 1: Here's a list of things that women in society shouldn't
Speaker 1: do anymore. It just perpetuates the dynamic exactly, And so
Speaker 1: I think these kinds of conversations with survivors to say,
Speaker 1: you know, this wasn't your fault. This violence happens because
Speaker 1: of a decision made by a perpetrator, and that's the
Speaker 1: full answer. I think that that's really powerful. That was
Speaker 1: doctor Nicole Bedera, And for more of her research, including
Speaker 1: how to pre order her new book on the Wrong Side,
Speaker 1: head over to Nicole Bedera dot com. We link to
Speaker 1: it in our show's notes, along with a list of
Speaker 1: resources for sexual salt survivors. And they're families. As always,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening. Now, What with Brookshields is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Our lead producer and wonderful showrunner is
Speaker 1: Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by Darby Masters and
Speaker 1: Abu Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett. The show
Speaker 1: is mixed by Bahed Fraser.