S- Promoting Social Norms that Protect Against Sexual Violence

Strengths

Survey participants identified strategies in Grey Bruce that promote sexual norms that prevent sexual violence:

The HER Grey Bruce ‘It starts with me’ poster campaign, the Sheatre ‘Far from the Heart’ production and Sexual Violence Prevention Month in May were rated as effective or very effective by people who knew about these campaigns.
66% of respondents said that service providers have a good or excellent understanding of consent, 57% said that adult women have a good – excellent understanding of consent, and 55% said educators had a good-excellent understanding of consent. More than half of the responders said that adult women, service providers and educators have a good to excellent understanding of consent.
72% of respondents believe that parents and family members are teaching children and youth skills needed to prevent SV and 63% believe teachers are teaching SV prevention skills in classrooms.

“The #MeToo campaign seems pretty effective”

“Victim blaming is still rampant…everyone seem to still stand by the saying, there are two sides to every story. This keeps bystanders from doing anything.” (survey participant)

“Consent is something coming more strongly into public consciousness…it’s going to be a huge factor in preventing sexual crimes in the future.” (survey participant)

Weakness

How well do we use bystander approaches to prevent sexual violence in Grey Bruce? Over 50% or respondents rated the bystander response to SV as poor or fair. “Never seen or heard of a bystander helping. People don’t want to get involved.” “When my best friend was sexually assaulted, no one believed her. I was disgusted”. “ I informed my employer of a sexual harassment happening…and they punished and blamed the women it was against, not the abuser.”

Between 42-92% of respondents don’t know about SV Prevention campaigns that have taken place in Grey Bruce over the past 5 years so they couldn’t say if they were effective. “Don’t know – haven’t hear of any of these campaigns” was a common comment.
83% of respondents said boys and young men have a poor to fair understanding of the concept of consent. 76% of respondents said adult men have a poor to fair understanding of consent, and 69% said girls and young women have a poor – fair understanding
75% of respondents said we are doing a poor (44%) or fair (31%) job of engaging boys and men in programs that model positive masculinity and SV prevention.

Discussions

In order to prevent sexual violence we need to change the harmful social norms that accept or allow indifference to violence. Engaging people in bystander approaches to help them identify SV, empower them to speak up about SV, and help them take steps to intervene safely and effectively, and mobilizing men and boys to be allies in preventing SV, support victims, and reduce their risk for future perpetration are both evidence based strategies that prevent SV. Another promising approach is to ensure people understand the concept of consent within sexual behavior.

Survey participants overwhelmingly said that much more needs to done to change social norms to protect against sexual violence. Although there are some promising initiatives and campaigns in Grey Bruce (It Starts with Me poster campaign, May Sexual Assault Month, #MeToo) most participants did not know about them. Survey participants believe sexual violence prevention programs need to be provided by health, police, education and community service organizations.

Interventions by bystanders to address SV were rated as poor or fair and many people noted that there is a reluctance in Grey Bruce to intervene or support victims, and a tendency to blame victims.

They reported that most men and boys are not engaged in programs that promote healthy masculinity, and most boys and men have a poor understanding of consent.

Broad education and training on helpful bystander approaches, healthy masculinity and consent are much needed in Grey Bruce.

“Consent is hard to isolate when weighed against the possible consequences of not consenting (social, job, family).” (survey participant)

“We are starting but it is moving slowly. Young people are being taught one thing but society is still teaching them victim blaming and the whole boys will be boys mindset.” (survey participant)

There are local resources accessible to any survivor of sexual violence in Grey&Bruce including the Sexual Abuse / Partner Abuse Care Centre and Male Survivor Program at the Men’s Program.
sexual assault services