Student organizing against gender-based violence
Excerpt from my interview with the Canadian Women’s Foundation (CWF) and the IMPACTS Team.
Overview:
Across Canada, students are mobilizing to end gender-based violence in their schools. Students of all ages are organizing in their high schools, CEGEPs, colleges, and universities to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of gender-based violence on campus, to support those who experience this violence, and to call for policy change to end it.
I spoke as part of a roundtable discussion with student organizers about the shape of student activism: what it’s like to organize online, the challenges of sustaining student-led movements, and their current campaigns and calls to action.
Q: How did you get involved in organizing around gender-based violence on your campus?
A: I got involved in organizing around gender-based violence through student politics. In the second year of my undergraduate degree, I ran to become a representative on my university’s Board of Governors.
I included advocating for a better sexual violence policy in my platform because of my own experiences with sexual violence growing up, and because I had heard about the work that OurTurn (now Students for Consent Culture) was doing.
When I joined the Board of Governors and brought the issue forward to one of my more experienced colleagues, he said “This is not a board priority, and I don’t see it becoming one unless there is a major crisis”. Three weeks later, I was sexually assaulted. I began my advocacy in the gender-based violence space at the same time I began navigating my own sexual assault case.
Q: What are the key issues you’re dealing with on your campus related to GBV and organizing within your institution?
A: My university’s sexual violence policy was survivor-centric in theory, but not always in implementation. Many survivors felt disincentivized to come forward because of the revictimization and barriers they experienced when coming forward.
Some issues with our policy included:
Perpetrators were able to find out many personal details about the survivors’ lives.
Survivors are forced to interact with their abusers and hear “their side” of what happened.
Survivors not knowing their perpetrator’s consequences following a completed investigation.
Interim measures and consequences are not being upheld by the administration.
Furthermore, the university administration wasn’t targeting every demographic it needed to in order to effectively implement prevention efforts. This allowed rape culture to remain pervasive throughout the student body.
Q: How did you tackle those issues, and what kind of institutional response did you receive?
A: I tackled gender-based violence through a variety of means, including:
Representing the student body in advocating for changes to the sexual violence policy as a Board member;
Speaking at large-scale public engagements, such as the United Nations 16 Day Campaign to End Gender-Based Violence;
Sharing my lived experiences at Survivors Speaks events put on by our university’s Women’s Center;
Helping my program put on fundraising events for sexual assault support centres in our community;
Meeting directly with the administration staff to raise concerns I had about how the university was perpetuating rape culture and failing to support survivors.
The institutional response I received was, for the most part, discouraging. I think that while there were individual staff willing to hear the student body out, the university administration as a whole was more intent on protecting their legal reputation than they were on creating a survivor-centric policy.
However, my one positive exception to this happened while I was reviewing the sexual violence policy at a Board meeting. I spoke up and raised concerns about some of the amended language they were proposing because it came across as victim-blaming. I knew the language they used throughout the policy could make or break whether survivors felt comfortable to come forward. I advocated for the language to change. And the administration agreed to it! It made me grateful to be in the right place at such an important time.
Q: We see lots of conversation online right now about gendered violence, like with the Depp v Heard trial, though some folks don't realize these conversations are tied to a broader structure of rape culture. How do you think social media is impacting the movement to end gendered violence on campus? Do you think social media has made it so that people are more aware of GBV as a systemic issue?
A: When I was in university, social media was a major tool to raise awareness about gender-based violence. There were the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, Chanel Miller’s victim impact statement went viral, some big abusers in Hollywood were being held accountable, and while the Trump era spewed misogyny, it also sparked the Women’s March, the largest single-day protest in U.S history.
Because youth are so receptive to change, and because my generation was raised so closely with the internet, these events spilled over into conversations about ending gender-based violence on campus. So I do think that while I was in university, social media was a powerful tool that made people more aware of gender-based violence as a systemic issue.
I am nervous about the way that the movement to end gender-based violence is going, both in terms of the upswing in violence against women, girls and gender non-conforming people throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the recent sensationalization of abusive relationships in media (Kanye/Kim, Johnny/Amber, etc.).
However, if my social media echo chamber is anywhere near reflective of the younger Gen Z, I firmly believe they have been able to bring forth feminist talking points that are far more nuanced and insightful than what I saw during the era of millennial pink, #girlboss feminism. That brings me hope.
Q: Though GBV is covered in the news and taken up by school administrators more than in the past, some activists have pointed out how an intersectional framework is often missing in efforts to address GBV. Are there any key concerns you see around a lack of an intersectional framework for how issues related to campus GBV are addressed?
A: My university’s current sexual violence policy is sparse in how it addresses intersectionality; it acknowledges that those in equity-seeking groups who experience intersecting forms of disadvantage may be disproportionately affected by sexual violence, but it doesn’t include an intersectional framework to address these issues.
The policy may aim to “combat broader societal attitudes regarding gender, sex and sexuality that normalize sexual violence and undermine equality in addition to recognizing systemic forms of oppression”, but it does not state how, or how someone within the university community may hold the institution accountable when it fails to do so.
It’s so important that we feel seen and cared for by those we go to for support. When those people can relate to our life experiences, it makes it much easier to open up. Without an intersectional lens and framework applied in policy and its implementation, survivors miss out on the support best suited to their unique needs.
Q: GBV is not the only issue or concern for students on campus. To what extent are you connected with other social justice organisations on your campus? How do you see these issues fitting together?
A: I was fortunate as a student politician to have an overview of everything going on on campus. I assisted my university in progress in many areas, such as adopting a new mental health framework, supporting our accessibility strategy and contributing to Carleton’s Indigenous strategy and calls to action.
However, in hindsight, I wish I had involved more of the student body, especially those with lived experience unlike mine, in organizing around gender-based violence to see where these issues could have fit together.
Q: As students doing this work, do you feel like you are part of a broader feminist movement? Have you been able to find allies outside of your post-secondary institution? Are you connected to the movement to end gender-based violence in your community or more broadly?
A: Being in university while a feminist wave was crashing over the internet, I absolutely felt connected to a wider movement. When Students for Consent Culture graded various universities across Canada on their sexual violence policies, it was discouraging to see how low the grades were across the board; but it was encouraging to know that students at other universities across the country were speaking out.
I’ve also been fortunate to carry on the work I started within the university to my workplaces after it- I’ve run trainings at my workplace about 2SMMIWG, and I’m currently writing a report about the priorities of First Nations women, gender-diverse and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people in British Columbia, and my next project is a policy brief advocating for sex education reform.
Q: By its very nature, student activism is time-limited. Students graduate out, move on to different institutions or roles in life. In contrast, systems change - whether it’s changing systems within post-secondary institutions or within government - can take a long time. How are student activists thinking about passing down knowledge to incoming students? Are there ways you think we can collaborate with off-campus feminist organizations to help prevent that loss of institutional knowledge?
A: My situation is unique in that I graduated early on in the pandemic, when everything, from the way we learned to the way we did activism, had transitioned online. Additionally, I graduated feeling extremely burnt out. I needed a break from the gender-based violence activism space in order to recover.
As a result, when I moved away from Ottawa, I didn’t think about the importance of passing down knowledge to incoming students. I wish I had because students’ memory of the activists who came before them is usually limited to 1-3 years older than their own efforts.
I absolutely see a role in collaborating with both on and off-campus feminist organizations in order to ensure that knowledge is able to be passed down. For example, women’s centres on campus could conduct outreach to the student activists they know in order to collect their policy recommendations, then pass these on to groups like Students for Consent Culture for campaigning purposes. We need stories of hope from those who came before us in order to keep us pushing forward.
Q: What kind of self-care considerations should student activists be thinking about, especially for those working in a gender-based violence space? What advice can you offer for balancing the stresses and possibly triggering or vicarious trauma of working on these issues with academic pressures, financial pressures, etc. that come with student life? What does it look like to take care of yourself and your community?
A: Living through Carleton’s sexual violence policy at the same time that it was up for revision meant that on one hand, I could share my lived experiences during a meaningful window of opportunity. On the other hand, I wish I could go back in time to when I was sexually assaulted and tell myself to take better care of myself.
When I was navigating my assault, I was a full-time student trying to remain on the Dean’s list, learn the world of student politics, partake in extracurricular activities, work part-time and maintain a ‘normal’ social life. It was an impossible balance, one that came at the expense of my mental health. Yet even though I knew I was navigating PTSD and depression, I never gave myself more than a week off of my work. I felt as though I had to stay involved in student politics in order to prove to my abuser’s circle of friends that they couldn’t silence me.
As a result, I hit a mental health rock bottom, one that if it weren’t for my therapist intervening, could have taken my life. I regret not giving myself time to heal and rest earlier. I didn’t listen to my mental health cues or body, and I’m lucky that people were around me when I was at rock bottom. Others might not be so lucky. It’s vital to have a support network, but you shouldn’t have to overextend yourself before leaning on them.
Therefore, my advice to those balancing advocacy in the gender-based violence space with the other demands of student life, especially for those with lived experience, is to be honest with yourself about what you have the capacity to take on and stay within your limits. Be gentle with yourself, because it may take years to recover if not.
You don’t have to change the world, or even your campus, in the short time you are there because there will always be brave folks willing to carry this work forward. Healing is such an important part of the work. I think about Micaela Coel’s Emmy speech, when she says, “Do not be afraid to disappear, from it, from us, for a while, and see what comes to you in the silence”. You are allowed to heal quietly and speak loudly about it later.
Q: What has been your biggest “win” as a student activist? Are you working on any specific campaigns now that we should know about?
A: This year, I’ve joined the Vancouver Foundation’s LEVEL Policy Program cohort. We’re working on putting together policy proposals on topics of our choosing so that they can be presented to the government. I’ve chosen to conduct my project on reforming British Columbia’s sex education system so that it has a stronger focus on consent, boundaries, healthy relationships and marginalized communities’ experiences of sexuality, such as those who are disabled or part of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community.
Last month, I visited parliamentarians at the BC Legislative Assembly, and the Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity mentioned my idea in conversation before I even had a chance to share it. So I’m incredibly hopeful that my policy ask will be taken well and will lead to change.
The wins we receive in this space are too often hard-fought, but they are possible. So if I can leave folks with one parting remark, it’s don’t give up the fight.
