Wall of Silence Conference

I have just worked 21 hours in the past 30, because I had the wonderful experience of catering for the Wall of Silence Conference at Wilfrid Laurier University, which was a national symposium on sexual violence on university campuses. This conference featured keynote speakers Pamela Cross and Jane Doe. (That's right, the Jane Doe who I've posted about before).

It was unfortunate that I had to actually cater the event, however, we found ourselves in a position where we were requested to serve three meals, host a wine and cheese last night, as well as provide snacks etc for breaks and since the summer has just started we are terribly understaffed. Though I had to work, I had the great pleasure of sitting in on Pamela Cross's address and of taking an hour off from my twelve hour day today in order to attend Jane Doe's address.

I would like to take some time in this post today to recount some of what I heard from both of these women. Sexual Assault on University campuses has become a crisis to say the least, with two residence rapes occurring this past school year on York's campus, and this year at Laurier having the highest number of sexual assaults on campus (reported) this year. In particular, there was actually an assault of a young woman in the quad at the on-campus party which is held during orientation week. (An event, I was working at, and was suprised at the fact that this was not even mentioned during subsequent meetings with upper management. This event was successfully silenced)

Pamela Cross is an accomplished feminist lawyer who has dedicated her life’s work to improving women’s access to justice. Pamela has been a tireless and committed advocate for abused women and community agencies. She is well known and respected in legal reform circles, and among isolated women experiencing violence.
She is presently a consultant working with a number of women’s organizations, primarily as Director of Strategic Planning and Policy with NAWL (National Association of Women and the Law). She was recently the Director of Advocacy and Public Policy with YWCA Canada after working as the Executive Director of NAWL until it lost its primary funder – Status of Women Canada.

She is also the former Legal Director of METRAC, a community agency committed to ending violence against women and children, where she led the development of the Ontario Women’s Justice Network – a unique legal information vehicle for marginalized and isolated women who had no access to private legal advice. While there, Pamela played a crucial role in developing and disseminating a legal analysis of the perils facing women experiencing and trying to escape intimate partner violence. (Taken from the facebook event page)

I only caught the last half of Pamela cross's lecture, however, she talked about some very shocking, and also some very informative issues. In particular, she emphasized the importance of challenging the framework through which we view rape, and equality. For Cross, economic equality is crucially important in putting a stop to violence and rape. Women still only make 73 cents for every dollar that men make, and this is across the board. This is the same pay gap that existed ten years ago. That is shameful, and in the end reflects the way in which society continues to perceive women. If women made the exact same wages as men that would place them on equal footing.The structures that surround women's economic inequality are the very same that surround the structures that support rape and sexual assault. In both cases women are considered to be less valuable than men, both physically and economically. Until women make the same amount of money as men, we can never even hope for any other type of equality.



What i've inferred from this, which makes perfectly logical sense, is that money is power. In my Bodies, Gender and Consumption class, we talked extensively about "the gift" and how a gift places the giver in a position of power, making the receiver feel that they are indebbted to reciprocate. It is in the same way that women find themselves in a positiong of inequality when they do not make the same wages as men. It is the same power dynamic, because women are therefore permanently relegated to the status of "dependant," (even in cases where women make more money and are not "dependant" this wage gap still finds them in a lower position of social standing, and continues to reenforce patriarchy in capitalism- which lets face it, is enescapable at this point since it is so entrenched in the way that we function as a society.)

Cross provided one and only statistic in her address, that being:

within the year 2000-2006 101 men who worked in the military and the army were killed.
within the same time span, 500 women were murdered by men.



Cross talked about the absurdity of this statistic: She has the upmost respect for military workers and for Police officers, but the fact that 500 women die when they enter into relationships, and by comparison only 100 men have died in professions which include death as a high risk is pretty fucked up. Even with a country at war, more women are murdered by men than there are men killed at war. And yet, no one does anything about this! "I mean come on!" (her exact words)

In fact, she also told the story of how a police horse and a brutally murdered woman were both having their funerals on the same day in Toronto. The mayor and other public figures attended the funeral of the horse, but not one public figure was at the funeral of the murdered woman. This says a lot about the way in which our government and public officials view the epidemic of violence against women.

80% of rape is not stranger rape. In fact, in the majority of rape cases, the perpetrator is known to the victim. This is the crucial fact that one must look at when addressing the problem of assault and violence on university campuses. Particularly with the cases of assault that took place at York, the administration's response by putting more security in dorms proves to be unsuccessful. This reaction does not challenge the framework but rather works within it accepting the existence of violence, rather than taking steps which say "men: stop raping women."

Many campuses have began to add extra saftey features to campuses with respect to women's campus safety such as walk-home services, extra lighting and emergency summon buttons. Cross was careful not to devalue these things because psychologically, even though women know that 80% of rape is acquiantance rape, the feeling of being unsafe does not dissappear when you're walking to your car late after a night class or after work. These additions to the department of safety are indeed valuable, but it is the framework that needs to be challenged, and it was that framework that was the focus of the conference.

More on Jane and the conference later, this has been a long post