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The real story about rape isn’t being told

Oct 19, 2016, www.uc.edu

M. B ReillyBy M.B. Reilly (513) 556-1824

In working to continually find better ways to prevent and respond to cases of sexual harassment, assault and misconduct, the University of Cincinnati is adding to the range of options it already offers in the form of advocacy, training, prevention and resources related to

Title IX

In an agreement between UC’s Division of Student Affairs and Women Helping Women (WHW), the community organization is providing two full-time, on-campus, confidential advocates to provide comprehensive support to those who have or are experiencing (or have witnessed) gender-based violence, such as sexual assault, domestic violence or stalking.

  • Starting in this new role on Oct. 20 is Courtney Harchaoui. She can be reached by stopping by 559 Steger Student Life Center, at 513-556-4418, or via e-mail at [email protected]
  • Starting as a second confidential advocate on Nov. 1 as part of the same agreement is Susan Pelle. She can be reached by stopping by 559 Steger Student Life Center, at 513-556-4418, or via e-mail at [email protected]

These advocates will provide confidential services that are focused on the survivor and include individual crisis intervention, hospital accompaniment, campus reporting assistance, accompaniment through Title IX and law enforcement or legal processes, assistance with campus-based accommodations, referrals for health and wellness services, and assistance with interim measures. While primarily focused on serving all students, the advocate will also be available to campus faculty and staff as well.

In addition to these full-time, on-campus advocates, the Women Helping Women hotline is available 24/7 at

513-381-5610

the WHW hotline.

Our new advocates, to be dedicated to serving the campus community, will provide confidential support for students. We believe survivors, and we support survivors. The advocate’s role is to listen to the survivor, outline options, link survivors to services that they want and to focus on empowerment,” said Kristin Smith Shrimplin, president and CEO of WHW.

According to Debra Merchant, vice president of UCs Division of Student Affairs, students need a variety of support options, and this new partnership with WHW provides another confidential support on campus, in the same way that there are counselors in UC’s Counseling and Psychological Services who specifically provide assistance to survivors of sexual assault or harassment.

She stated, this adds to what we can provide to students. Some of the support is what we call confidential (like that offered by a counselor or this advocate). Some of it is what we call non-confidential or of public record, like going to UCPD. In order to provide the best service, its important to provide these confidential options as well.

Other Title IX News:

  • With the start of the new school year, UC expanded prevention options with new bystander training.
  • With the start of the new school year, UC has developed a Support Services Coordination Team to bring together all those addressing gender-based violence and sexual assault.
  • UC has added two Title IX investigators and recently hosted (on Aug. 15-16) a level one Title IX investigator training session, led by the Association of Title IX Administrators.
  • Annually, incoming UC students take ‘Think About It’ online training highlighting the role alcohol often plays in terms of sexual assault. That training also focuses on accountability and consequences, laws and policies governing sexual assault.
  • The new offerings add to those already available to students, including confidential medical services, UCPDs victim services coordinator, and UCs Counseling and Psychological Services Center 24/7 service to students in crisis due to sexual harassment, misconduct and assault. For a complete list of resources, visit UCs Title IX site.

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Sept 10, 2016, www.press-citizen.com

Kristin Shrimplin CEO of Women Helping Women

By Kristin Smith Shrimplin

Kristin Smith Shrimplin is the president and CEO of Women Helping Women, an agency that serves all survivors of sexual assault, stalking and domestic violence in Hamilton and Butler counties.

September marks the back-to-school season. Incoming college first-year students are adjusting to new routines of dorm life, parental freedom, rigorous class schedules and the buzz of a thriving academic and social life on campus.

But there is another reality that is currently happening in their environment. Many of them, primarily women, are surrounded by the “Red Zone.” According to the 2007 Campus Sexual Assault Study, more than 50 percent of college sexual assaults occur in either August, September, October or November. The CSA’s findings also indicate “that women who are victimized during college are most likely to be victimized early on in their college tenure.

This is why this time on campus is so critical. As students are exchanging innovative ideas and debating critical concepts – their teachings must involve discussions of consent culture. But how much of their tuition costs will cover mandatory classes on gender-equality and social justice? How much time and space will our university presidents, deans of students, athletic coaches, professors, residential hall advisors, and Greek Life campus leaders allocate to the promotion of consent culture – waving it proudly like a symbol of excellence on a school banner? Does consent culture even get discussed in our lecture halls, in our campus board rooms, on the football fields, in the bars, at the parties, or in the dorm rooms?

It does not. In fact, our region, along with the nation, struggles to even address rape culture. We struggle to form budget-backed policies with best practice actions that truly dismantle and eradicate a public health epidemic that attacks one out of four campus students who will experience sexual assault this year. And those statistics are low. We know that sexual assault has already happened at our campuses this year – in the first week. This is not theory. This is fact. These are our students. These are our children. These are our future leaders. But now we call them survivors. We leave them to fend for themselves in a culture where others’ entitlement trumps autonomy of one’s own body.

Let’s talk about that – when did violence rise to the level of normative acceptance? History would suggest that such an entitled culture was born when our country was founded. The genocide of Native Americans and our country’s institutionalization of slavery was the beginning of people becoming property. But we are nearing 2017 and there is no room for someone to not own the decisions and safety of their own body. Yet here we are – struggling with rape culture to the point where we cannot even hear our own voices trying to teach about consent.

Women Helping Women (WHW) believes in building a culture of empowerment that dismantles gender-based violence. We have expanded our services to campuses to keep up with demand of victimization – but we cannot generate change alone. We need all members of our diverse community to cultivate a culture where consent and equality are valued over normalized violence and entitlement.

The solution is not easy – culture change never is. Ending rape culture requires us to end inequality with gender, race, class and all intersections of oppression. It mandates that all forms of social injustices cease being “justified.”

It demands that our city leaders generate budget-backed policies for prevention. It demands that our academic institutions provide as much funding to campus sexual assault prevention as they do for athletic scholarships and recruitment strategies. It demands that our K-12 schools open up all of their health classes to dating violence and sexual violence prevention curriculum. It demands that corporate board rooms open up their portfolios to back agencies working on the front lines with survivors and to invest in equal pay for women. It demands that every male – coach, teacher, parent, friend, colleague – exercises true strength and promotes equality, empowerment and safety of women and girls.

We are in the Red Zone, and the fact is that many sexual assaults and rapes have already occurred this academic year. This is not how we welcome students to their “higher education.” We did not raise them for this. So, we must rise up, dig deep, get real and invest with our dollars, our policies, our actions, our campaigns, and our words to promote a culture where consent is the norm, and entitlement holds no place on our campuses or in our communities.

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June 10, 2016, www.cincinnati.com

Kristin Shrimplin CEO of Women Helping Women

Kristin Smith Shrimplin is the president and CEO of Women Helping Women, an agency that serves all survivors of sexual assault, stalking and domestic violence in Hamilton and Butler counties.

The story about a Stanford University student who committed sexual assault caught national and local attention. But this is not a new narrative. This is a story that is very worn out. As the leader of Women Helping Women, I am unapologetically angry at the repetitive nature of this story. It’s 2016, and our nation, our communities and our campuses remain besieged by rape culture. This is an epidemic, and it is time for radical change.

Let’s start by changing the narrative. Media: Please tell us the stories of all of the actions and the words of the male friends of Brock Turner who went to the party with him. Tell us about how they stepped in at every point that he and any other individual targeted a woman for domination and control. Tell us about what Stanford University taught Brock Turner and all of its students about consent culture during first-year orientation. Tell us what Brock Turner’s father told him as a young man going off to college about how to respect women’s autonomy. Tell us what the teachers taught Brock Turner in middle and high school on prevention of sexual violence. Tell us what Brock Turner’s swim coach taught him when he was 8 years old about character, integrity and being a true champion.

Brock Turner (right) makes his way into the Santa Clara Superior Courthouse in Palo Alto, California, on June 2. He received a six-month jail sentence for raping a young woman.

Tell us. We will listen. But no one can tell us those stories because no one can find those headlines. The headlines can’t be reported because that’s not what happened that night or at all the points in time before that night. This is what is happening:

  • 98 percent of rapists never see a day in jail or prison.Brock Turner entering Santa Clara Superior Courthouse
  • 1 out of 3 women are sexually assaulted or physically abused in their lifetime.
  • 1 out of 4 girls experience sexual assault before the age of 18.
  • A rapist’s father complains about his son’s sentence of 6 months of prison for “20 minutes of action,” and the woman raped must live with the impact of the trauma for the rest of her life.
  • In 2015, WHW responded over 15,000 times to the hospitals, to the courts, to the hotline, to support groups, and to one-on-one crisis intervention to serve survivors in Hamilton and Butler counties alone.
  • In the first quarter of 2016, WHW hit a record of responding over 4,000 times to survivors.

Let’s change the narrative by changing what we tell women and girls. Men: Be brave and talk to your sons, grandsons, nephews and friends about sexual assault, rape and consent culture. Promote prevention. Listen to the women and girls in your life. When women and girls tell you their stories, stand beside them with full support and model the Stanford survivor’s powerful words:

“… to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you… you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful, and nobody can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you…”

Let’s change the narrative and unite as a community to combat this violence. This public health epidemic demands attention as if it were toxic, lead-laden water in our public pipelines. Policymakers, institutions, universities, and community members: Let’s work together to dismantle immaterial language that describes a rapist. Individuals who commit sexual violence make a decision to commit a crime to victimize and violate another individual. It is immaterial that a rapist is an athlete with a promising swimming career who can no longer enjoy a steak because of the crime he committed. These irrelevant words serve as a manufactured smokescreen that takes us away from the real story.

The real story is that the rape culture violates our community’s ability to thrive. WHW trustees, advocates, prevention educators, volunteers and survivors call for a “forever cure” to this public health crisis. All leaders, supporters and major institutions must intensely use their influence and resources to shine a light on a crime that hides in the dark behind dumpsters. Humans are not trash.

We can no longer dismiss this issue as merely a “women’s issue.” This is a human rights issue in which humans are stripped of their autonomy and self-agency of their very own bodies. Sexual assault is a crime – a debilitating, soul-stripping crime. And now is the time to change it all: Change the media’s framing of the narrative. Change the judicial institutions’ response. Change patriarchy. Change oppression. Change apathy. Change the system.

WHW believes in the radical notion that all of our community members deserve to thrive in a culture of accountability, prevention and consent. Let’s all be “upstanders” and build that community together to support survivors and promote prevention.

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