9781422276075

Copingwith Sexual violence and Harassment

Introduction

According to the advocacy group RAINN, someone in the United States is sexually assaulted every 98 seconds. That is an almost incomprehensible statistic. Even more mind-bending is the fact that the rate of sexual assault in the country has declined by 63 percent since 1993—meaning that as bad as the situation is now, it’s actually an improvement on a couple of decades ago. Meanwhile, in a survey conducted in 2018, 81 percent of women reported having experienced some form of sexual harassment. Probably the only good thing we can say about these rates is that if you have survived an experience like that, you are definitely not alone. Many, many people have been where you are right now; they have not only survived but thrived, and you can also. Past silence in the face of harassment and assault was one factor that left survivors with the impression that they were all alone. That silence was broken in a big way with the birth of the Me Too movement in 2017, and the disclosures have not slowed down since. Another factor causing that sense of isolation was a widespread misunderstanding of who is affected by sexual assault and harassment. Our image of the “typical victim” tends to be young, female, white, and straight. That’s understandable in a sense—that demographic does experience high rates of assault and harassment. But in truth, these crimes don’t recognize gender, race, age, or sexuality. Anyone can be victimized by assault or

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