household I remember looking up at my
mother while her bruised fat swollen lip
hung over me
or seeing her punched in the eye so hard
that a terribly escaped down her cheek
but I also experienced the violence I
can still feel my hair being ripped from
my scalp or being choked so violently
that my feet dangled off the ground or
being kicked in the stomach with steel
toed boots so hard that I felt like his
foot was gonna go through my spine at
age 15 after I had already gone to the
police and told them about my
experiences and they did nothing I knew
I needed to get out of there so I
dropped out of school I move states I
found a job and moved in with my first
boyfriend unfortunately he became
another abuser he violently raped and
beat me regularly
and he would steal my paychecks so he
made me feel like I was economically
dependent on him even though we were
equal earners after about a year the
violence was escalating so much that I
felt like he was gonna murder me so I
left I move States again I found two new
jobs and I started homeschooling myself
to earn my high school diploma once I
did I entered Community College but I
was terrified I remember looking around
at everybody and I felt so different
I had under trauma almost every single
day of my life up until that point and
it was seeping out of me in the form of
panic attacks I had post-traumatic
stress disorder and I knew I needed to
find a way to cope with my experiences
so I started writing about them in my
academic classrooms and talking about
them in our classroom discussions and I
had wonderful teacher
that enabled me to see my experiences
it’s not just an individual issue but as
part of larger systemic issues I was one
among many in my Community College in my
community in the United States and in
the world that experienced gender-based
violence with my teacher support iron
aids and almost all of my classes and I
graduated with honors from Community
College and then highest honors from UC
Berkeley and then I earned a master’s
degree from an Ivy League now I’m
pursuing my second master’s degree and a
PhD at The Ohio State University
now throughout my studies I’ve been
aware of the title 9 requirement that is
a wonderful piece of legislation that
mandates that no person be discriminated
against on the basis of sex and this has
really worked to improve gender equality
what I’m concerned about is the
mandatory reporting requirement I know
now about the requirement and I’m afraid
to talk about my experiences in my
classrooms because I know that my
teachers are required to report me and I
don’t consent to that and that should be
my choice but I also teach undergraduate
students and I alert that them that I am
a mandatory reporter and I know I’m
likely likely silencing many of my
students who may have felt comfortable
talking about their experiences
previously so it’s really important to
look at mandatory reporting in relation
to the statistics about three women a
day are murdered by an intimate partner
in the United States every 24 or every
minute 24 people become victims of rape
physical violence or stalking by an
intimate partner but only about 34% seek
medical treatment for an injury caused
by an intimate partner demonstrating
that these people generally don’t want
others to know about what they’re
experiencing and don’t want to be
reported out of every thousand rapes
only
310 are reported well only 57 lead to
arrest and only fixed to incarceration
meaning 994 out of every thousand
alleged rapes perpetrators do not see
jail time for the crime and one in five
women who are college students will
experience rape or attempted rape
while a college student but only 5% are
reported so I can look in my classroom
and even in this room today and know
that there are people who are probably
survivors of rape and other forms of
gender-based violence but what’s
important to note is that people who are
lesbian gay bisexual or transgender are
even higher risk of intimate partner
violence or rape but heterosexual men
can also be victims of these crimes –
these are crimes that impact everyone
yet in different ways so knowing these
very high rates of gender-based violence
but the very low rates of survivors
consenting to reporting these violence’s
this clearly conflicts with the
mandatory reporting requirement and we
have to ask why is this University’s are
increasingly built on business models
they’re becoming less student-centered
and more centered on mitigating risk and
producing profit but in this process
mandatory reporting can actually
revitalize survivors so if somebody has
to closed an experience of gender-based
violence to a teacher or an employee of
an institution and they’re reported they
may feel like their consent and their
trust has been violated when they’ve
made themselves so vulnerable already
and in many cases survivors are still in
intimate relationships with their abuser
and the violence may escalate if the
busers of the investigation process
potentially by monitoring an email
account or a cellphone account of the
survivor and also the survivor may take
the side of the perpetrator because I
may feel like they love them much like I
felt like I loved my abuser so it’s
really important to question with the
high rates of gender-based violence but
the low race of people reporting it why
this is in place and it really can
subject survivors to victim blaming to
not being believed like we’ve seen so
many times before and to being forced to
relive their trauma by being asked about
it by strangers that they did not
initially consent to talking about it to
so the big question is what are we gonna
do about it because I can tell you from
my perspective I probably wouldn’t be
here advocating for survivors of
gender-based violence at the educational
level that I am had I been reported so
what is important is we need to abolish
mandatory reporting and that whatever
takes his place is centered on the needs
of survivors we need to make sure that
as universities its employees as
teachers we’re not violating the consent
of survivors like the perpetrators
already have done but we need to make
sure we’re getting survivors the
resources that they need so we should
mandatorily and reoccurring Lee trained
teachers on how to talk to survivors of
gender-based violence and provide them
resources they need and we can also put
posters throughout campus with all the
community and campus resources that
survivors can choose to use at a time
that’s right for them in a way that’s
right for them and which one is right
for them if any but what’s really
important is that we also focus on
preventative measures we need to teach
people not to rape not to sexually
assault not to stalk not to beat not to
commit any form of gender-based violence
and this needs to happen from very young
ages all the way through their entire
lives and this training needs to be
focused on sex positivity
on eradicating harmful gender
stereotypes and on the awareness that
people can experience intersecting forms
of violence at the same time it may be
it’s systemic racism systemic sexism
systemic homophobia and so on and that
may make them more vulnerable to
gender-based violence and not being able
to seek adequate remedies to cope with
what they have gone through so I can
tell you that while I am a statistic I
am also an individual that matters and
so do all other survivors of
gender-based violence
so whatever replaces mandatory reporting
it’s important that it is centered on us
and our needs
thank you [Applause]