CONTENT WARNING: Contains mention of sexual assault and sexual violence.
The reality of sexual assault hits women at different times. I first learned of the term “date-rape” watching an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 when California University hosts a Take Back the Night rally, then later in an episode of Felicity when a seemingly nice guy crosses the line because of a fundamental misunderstanding of consent. At the time my idea of sexual predators were Ted Bundy or Paul Bernardo; it was weird to think that men who looked like family friends- with good table manners and a nice smile- could commit this kind of violence. Now about twenty years after the original airdate of those episodes, the reality of sexual assault is as prevalent as ever. The reality hits me in a different way now as a university student than a twelve-year old with bad taste in TV, and I can’t help but think: why did it take me watching incredibly dated episodes of 90’s teen soaps to learn about these topics?
Ellie Ade Kur aspires to organize and educate on these topics- without the acid wash jeans. Last year the PhD student cofounded the University of Toronto chapter of Silence is Violence, a campaign created by and for survivors of sexual and domestic violence. It was a particularly loaded year in relation to gender-based violence: anonymous threats against feminist students were posted online in September and the pro-rape provocateur Roosh V was planning a February rally in Queen’s Park. Kur says that Silence is Violence was not created specifically in response to those events but “for sure to those sentiments.”
I met with Kur at the GSU pub, where she regularly marks papers; this marks her eighth year at U of T where she is currently getting a PhD in geography. “I grew up in a poor working class community in Winnipeg. We didn’t have conversations about feminism.” Feminism came to Kur when she started her undergrad in 2008: “[Sexual Assault] was an issue immediately… It was something that me and my networks of friends experienced quite a bit.” Her political action on the issue started years later when Mandi Gray, of friend of Kur’s at York University, started a division of Silence is Violence after her own assault and a series of strikes at York. She and Gray connected and discussed these issues, both being survivors of sexual assault. When she began teaching students began to disclose their stories to her, Kur was alarmed when a young woman she had been working with discussed her experience trying to report her attack to the campus assault counselor. “A lot of the questions were like: ‘are you sure this is what happened?’ ‘was this a misunderstanding?’ ‘were you drinking?’ ‘what were you wearing?’” It was a line of questioning familiar to Kur who realized it was the same counselor she had met with during the third year of her undergrad when she attempted to report her assault. “[I just thought] from me to her, how many people were in between?”
And thus, Silence is Violence began with the initial purpose of providing support to survivors through counseling, peer support, and academic support. The purpose expanded to organizing rallies and eventually coordinating workshops on sexual education and sexual health. This includes talking about consent, bystander intervention training, and what checking in looks like. They have chosen not to be an official campus group, when asked how the administration has reacted Kur replied: “the easiest answer is that they haven’t.” This doesn’t bother them one bit: “we want to have the autonomy to be able to critique not only the university but also a lot of organizations at the university.” This includes student and labour unions that do not give an adequate response in events of sexual violence. Their separation from the administration in an official capacity allows them to represent survivors solely whether providing an academic support when victims are not able to complete an assignment due to this trauma, or demanding that victims not be forced to live in the same dormitory as their attackers. The organization’s main goal is speaking for people rather than to people. This includes their rallies: “we don’t organize protests for the admin- there are protests of the admin, but at the end of the day those protests are for us.” She acknowledges that a lot of progress can be credited to grassroots organizers, the dialogue that now exits around issues of sexual violence is because of the voices of those who experienced it. “For college and university campuses specifically this is not a voluntary conversation… This is a product of years and years of organizing and activism and work done on campuses led by survivors of sexual violence.” To Kur protests are a way to speak back to powers that don’t traditionally listen to you but: “Do I think that Meric Gertler is on the other side listening to everything we say? Probably not.”
When the administration does respond, their instinct is often to increase campus security, which the movement opposes. To Kur this “Builds off this false idea that the majority of sexual assaults happen when someone jumps out of the bushes.” Silence is Violence wants to emphasize sexual assault is not strictly a “stranger danger” problem but a broader misunderstanding of consent. She adds that security does not make everyone more secure and cites the recent free speech protests of U of T psychology professor Jordan Peter: “The only people who got targeted by the police were trans students and black students.” Intersectionality is at the core of Silence is Violence and they aim to start an open and honest conversation about power and privilege including how certain forms of privilege influence the resources you are able to access, and how privilege factors into the court system.
Silence is Violence operates on believing and supporting victims. This can be a complicated issue when these cases are subject to the legal system. “Considering the way the criminal justice system works now and statistically speaking the likelihood of being able to come forward with a very real story of violence and victimization and being A, believed B, treated with respect and C, see a conviction… Those things aren’t happening in our criminal justice system.” These cases have to be fairly examined but that does not excuse the trauma that women withstand when coming forward with a case of assault. Adding that it is a messy conversation Kur says: “It’s possible and totally legitimate to [raise issues of being able to] walk through the details of the case. There is space and there should be space to be able to walk through something as traumatic as sexual violence.” She suggests having separate courts: specialized lawyers, crowns and judges to deal with such cases. Kur stresses the importance of sanctions at the university level as well as the federal level, mentioning that a lot of people commit these crimes thinking they will get away with it. She advocates for more suspension, removal and expulsion.
A guilty verdict however, is not the end of a survivor’s experience nor does it end the conversation around rape culture that needs to be had. It is easy to dismiss Kur and the rest of the movement as “Social Justice Warriors… Thriving off a culture of victimhood,” as some have. “The community I come from was full of people like that… At the end of the day when you look at how prevalent sexual assault is in our communities, every single person knows someone or knows of someone whose experienced sexual violence.” The group finds ways to take ideas that may seem abstract and ground them into real and lived in experiences of men and women. They are often able to reach male students through ideas such as toxic masculinity: “when we approach rape culture and toxic masculinity as these things that go hand and hand and the pressures that are put on young boys and men to conform to a very violent and very abusive form of masculinity.” The group wants to make sure that every university student understands the idea of consent and that this education can be implanted at an early age: “In terms of basic consent: ‘Can I touch this person?’ ‘Can I be around this person?’ Checking in to see if what you’re doing is okay- these things can start as early as Kindergarten.” Kur stresses that it is more complicated than simply “yes means yes and no means no” and that students need to know that there will be gray areas and how to deal with those gray areas.
It is easy to think about sexual assault as an American issue with the number of high profile cases and a rampant fraternity culture: “[Canadians] are inclined to think that [assault] doesn’t happen here,” Kur states, “Movements in Canada are still trying to find a unified voice.” A recent Globe and Mail report says that around 90% of harassment cases on universities are kept quiet, perhaps because of this inclination. Venues for survivors to speak and be heard are more crucial than ever, while the victims that come to Kur have different stories they often have a similar aftermath of struggling to disclose. Kur says that hearing the stories never gets any easier but she has really taken to her new role of mentorship: “there’s always a desire to share your story and have people listen without judging you.”