Thank you so much Danielle, for your time, insight, expertise, and generosity in today’s episode. We join you in your commitment to increase knowledge about rape and sexual violation and provide language so people can name sexual violation for what it is.

This is the link to Danielle’s website which has a link to her book, “Speaking About Rape: The Limits of Language in Sexual Violations.”

https://www.danielletumminiohansen.com/

Listed below are the quotes from Danielle’s book which were read and discussed in this episode:

"What does it take to keep a person from naming her own sexual violation for what it is?"

"I recall a session with my own therapist where I was going to tell her about what had happened to me, but when it came time for me to actually explain, I found that I didn't have words to do it. I verbally froze, unable to speak, unable to say words like "rape" or "sexual assault" or even to offer a description of what had occurred. What I could do, though, was turn to music, the vocabulary of my childhood. I took out a compact disc player and turned on Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei, a devastating choral composition that begins as quietly as it is possible for singers to perform - pianissimo - and then escalates in tone and tension into a kind of collective vocal suffering. And what a singer seems to communicate in the performance of it is the same thing I was feeling: a profound sense of aloneness, of hopelessness, of fear. It said what I needed to say better than any narrative could have. My therapist seemed to understand, and after that, I found that I was able to talk about my experiences a little more freely."

"If you don't see yourself included in the language, then what is there to say? Because those who survived harm live within linguistic discourses, they may also self-gaslight, becoming unable to categorize harm that they might have named had they been exposed to different epistemic constructions of it, by which I mean that they might have thought differently about their own experiences if they had been exposed to different ways of constructing the knowledge related to it."

"Victimized individuals may, therefore, first imagine themselves as co-writers or, at least, ghost writers who had at least some agency or subjectivity in the encounter to maintain a sense of control or a sense of protection, or because they genuinely believe that's the most accurate representation of the event. Put more colloquially, they are prone to blame themselves. And while psychologists often label this as denial, I'm not sure it's always as simple as that - sometimes people are wrestling with the significance of events using competing ways of knowing (or epistemologies), which resolves into cognitive dissonance and the feeling that one is assembling a puzzle, the but the events that make up the pieces do not fit together to create a coherent picture. That's not denial. That's turmoil."

We are so grateful to "Esther" for taking the time and energy to raise their voice and help us continue to learn what it means to be everyday advocates. To read a fuller version of "Esther's" story, check out their blog at www.overturningtables.co.uk

You can also find @overturning_tables on Instagram

The email from the Head of Safeguarding referenced in the conversation can be found here: https://overturningtables.co.uk/email#abdbdd56-2cb9-481f-afd3-8b362b38d09d

Esther has also recommends a couple of resources:

https://survivorsgateway.london/

https://safespacesenglandandwales.org.uk/

And if you'd like to support an organization that has helped "Esther" and many others, consider Rape Crisis England and Wales https://www.justgiving.com/page/rape-crisis

We are so grateful to Alexa for her time and wisdom. We sincerely hope this empowers survivors considering court with the info they need to navigate that space with a little less harm. And that we ALL grow in our awareness in order to strategically support survivors in their attempts to find justice.

Here's a link to the 278 project "Survivor Safety Matters":
www.survivorsafetymatters.ca

Here's a link to the document where Alexa and her team have clearly laid out a comparison between the charter rights of victims vs the accused and how well those rights are executed in the court system:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12OKTkfJ9zmLfaQrcZd_wWAcRRXzYgaE4/view?usp=sharing

Here are the stats Alexa rattled off in case you want to take a closer look:
https://sexualassaultsupport.ca/statistics-sexual-violence-in-canada/

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/benefits-military/conflict-misconduct/sexual-misconduct/training-educational-materials/myths-facts.html

EVERYDAY ACTIVISM:
Canadians, please sign this petition to endorse action be taken to change 278 (which gives the accused access to victim's private records like counseling records, journals and such):

Non-Canadians, here is a link to a petition you can sign to communicate the same thing to decision makers:

Follow the movement on Instagram (liking and sharing the content boosts the volume): https://www.instagram.com/survivor_safety_matters/

Know someone in the media, government or with a connection to sexual assault centres? Make an introduction to the Survivor Safety Matters team: https://www.survivorsafetymatters.ca/contact