Statistics don’t lie, but to think there are young students in Oliver impacted by sexual harassment or assault is very unsettling.
Last week’s BC Lions presentation on breaking the silence on violence against women was a real eye-opener.
The fact is one in three women experiences sexual assault in her lifetime, and women in BC are subjected to more than 1,000 physical or sexual assaults each week.
How is that allowed to happen? How is that even tolerated?
These dangerous attitudes tend to start small. They may begin as locker room banter about women, progressing to catcalling and slapping butts in the hallway.
When nobody speaks up, it could escalate to more inappropriate touching and harassment, and finally coerced sex.
Backing up a bit, merely touching a woman inappropriately is sexual assault under the law.
Attitudes have changed so much over the past 40 years.
In the 1970s, a lot of teen males routinely harassed females and got away with it because it was considered normal behaviour. After school or on weekends, it wasn’t uncommon for a group of boys to “fool around” with a girl by restraining her and lifting up her top to expose her breasts. Many of these girls never reported the incident, and so the ritual (or bizarre right of passage) continued.
Unfortunately, there were no talks in school about respecting women and their bodies, and no reminders that sexual harassment was wrong.
Fast forward to today and thankfully it’s the complete opposite. However, some of these archaic attitudes still linger, punctuated by sex jokes and comments that belittle and intimidate women.
That’s why it’s refreshing to see BC Lions players speaking out and encouraging others to do the same.
It takes courage to step out from the crowd and stop the harassment, but if nobody does, every person is condoning it and the cycle continues.
It’s up to all of us to change the culture and stop these dangerous attitudes from hurting women. Remember, that one out of three women could be your mother, your sister, or your girlfriend.
BC Lions fullback Rolly Lumbala said it doesn’t matter what a young lady is wearing because she’s allowed to wear what she wants. True. But on the other side of the coin, if she’s wearing a revealing outfit to attract attention, she might get the unwanted advances of an uneducated swine (aka sexist pig). That’s the unfortunate reality that women have to realize.
Sadly, many young people have been brainwashed by television and the media. They can’t leave the house unless they look like someone other than themselves. They are living by other people’s standards and the expectations that they have to look “hot.”
Many parents try to restructure this thinking but they are no match for peer pressure.
Hopefully youth will learn that being strong and being your own individual is more attractive than a face full of makeup and tight pants.
These football players are right: we have to break the silence on violence against women and be more than a bystander. Remember, the power of one can lead to the power of many.
Lyonel Doherty, editor
