Reclaim the Night article

This one should've been a Women's Column, but got re-positioned & then attributed to 'a salient writer'.

And then the one that was published, but doesn't show on the website 

*sigh* Are there any more ways to cock up the editorial, guys?

Surviving sexual abuse

Being molested as a child is like having cancer, but without there being a way to actually destroy the disease. Paedophilia kills off a part of a child’s natural development, that of self-esteem and self-identity - for the abused person, the ‘other’, the abuser, is always the one in control, the one setting boundaries.

No wonder that those of us who make it through to adulthood (& a huge majority don’t - as a proper investigation of youth suicide statistics would bear out), often bear the scars in the form of disordered personality traits, poor choice-making (or none - the ‘spontaneous’ decision-making, abdicating to peer-groups, that masks anxiety and uncertainty) and low self-esteem that continues to plummet, as abusers identify the ‘survivors’ within their purview, to abuse again. 

‘Getting over it” is not just a matter of a few chats with someone from a helping agency. Just as the grief process cycles backwards and forwards through denial, anger, despair and acceptance, when dealing with death, or another such stressful loss such as divorce or relationship loss, these stages can be seen in the progress of abuse survivors.

Latency in childhood leads to many adults ‘recovering memories’ of childhood sexual abuse later in life; often this is coupled with an experience of current abuse, which triggers the deeper fears, and the deep-seated memories guarded by the psyche.

‘Burnout’ amongst those who are activists in the area of rape support and abuse counselling is often related not only to the gruelling day-to-day contact with survivors of sexual abuse, but also the activists’ personal issues, dealing with their own experiences of abuse.

We live, here in Aotearoa/New Zealand, in a culture of violence, where child abuse segues into teenage rape victims, serial rapists who terrorise entire cities (such as Malcolm Rewa in the 80’s) and a casual attitude to rape that allows some moron ad-agency to get an ad funded for ALAC, making a woman who has had a few drinks responsible for the actions of her rapist. (No, SORRY! He committed the crime!) 

Our TV coverage is saturated with advertising that reinforces these ideas - that women alone are necessarily vulnerable, that a trustworthy male is an important accessory for a night out, that macho behaviour is epitomised by the AB’s (who have had several members appear in Court in the past 12 months for violent, abusive behaviour, including domestic abuse) and that our aspirational spending habits would be positively influenced by reference to the above concepts. (Ok, so this could head off into a call for more women to go into advertising exec positions, but that would be a digression too far, even for me.)

As we run into Women’s Fest Week, go out, have fun - and look out for each other. Break out of the sterotypes, and think again about why one of your friends might drink too much, or recoil in horror from smoke blown in her face, or suddenly want to leave a venue you had all been enjoying. Set some ‘safety calls’ before you go out - have taxi money, or a designated sober driver - and never, ever, leave a mate passed out on a bench seat in a bar! (even the really comfy ones at the San Fran!)