A panel discussion on women’s safety held Wednesday afternoon at city hall was timely in the worst way for presenter Julie Lalonde of Hollaback! Ottawa.
Lalonde said she was robbed on an OC Transpo bus just hours before the event. She didn’t hesitate to tell the bus driver who then stopped the bus to settle the matter. But she felt ashamed to ask for help when she was sexually assaulted on a bus two years ago.
“When sexual assault happens you want to melt into the floor because it’s so embarrassing. When I raised my voice to scream people looked at me awkwardly,” Lalonde says.
The embarrassment and shame surrounding sexual assault made her feel powerless, she says. She didn’t feel any qualms about reporting the robbery because it’s not taboo. We live in a society where we don’t talk about sexual assault because it’s shameful, she says.
The panel agreed that the discussion surrounding preventing violence against women needs to change to reflect community responsibility instead of only placing the onus on women to protect themselves.
“We keep hearing that women should have a curfew and a chaperone, but that’s not what it’s generally called. We call it common sense that women shouldn’t go out at night,” said Lalonde.
Ottawa police organized the panel as a part of Crime Prevention Week in Ontario.
Panelists included representatives from the Ottawa Police as well as local women’s groups including Hollaback! Ottawa, the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women, and Women’s Initiatives for Safer Environments.
The coalition claims that 20 to 25 per cent of women on university or college campuses will experience sexual assault during their academic career.
Dillon Black, who works for the coalition and participated in the panel, says it’s worrisome that she has met a lot of young men who say they don’t know how to identify violence when they see it or what to do afterwards. “We often talk about having more lights, text messaging systems, and emergency buttons but we don’t talk about creating a culture of responsibility with people becoming active bystanders who will intervene in a safe way,” Black says.