Vancouver Rape Relief Response to Vancouver Sun Article "Woman Felt Humiliated by Rape Relief"
Vancouver Rape Relief Response to Vancouver Sun Article of December 12, 2000
December 12, 2000
Vancouver Sun
Dear Editor,
c/o Don Cayo
I hope to correct a mistake that was made in Scott Simpson’s Dec 11, 2000 coverage of the Human Rights tribunal that Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter currently finds itself in. “Woman felt humiliated by Rape Relief.” It was reported that the three women trainers who rejected Kim Nixon as a trainee in August 1995 identified themselves as lesbians. This is not accurate reporting of the testimony nor of the events. In fact two of the three women are not lesbians. To be clear, we support women’s right to sexual autonomy including the right to practise lesbianism. We know that lesbian women face a high level of discrimination in a sexist society and we are alert to prevent any personal or professional harm to the lives of women who are not and do not wish to be described publicly as lesbians.
Apart from that error, Mr. Simpson’s coverage focused on the opening positions that each side of this issue has taken and has done so accurately. I hope that any further coverage of this case will portray the very human face of Vancouver Rape Relief and the women who both work there and who call us in times of crisis. In the past year, Rape Relief workers have responded to over 1200 women who have experienced male violence ranging from rape to incest to wife beating and sexual harassment. In the same time period, through operating a shelter for battered women we have provided safety, support and advocacy for over 100 women and their children as they reject living lives with violent men.
The women who do this work and the women and men who support us do so because they believe that women should be free from the threat of violence that is with us throughout our lives, including our girlhood. We are defending our right to organize on the basis of shared life experience. Fortunately for Ms. Nixon, she has never had to contend with menstruation, the fear of pregnancy, the fear of not being pregnant, the sexual proposition of the man whose children she babysat, or the development of breasts. These experiences are among the myriad of experiences that women who have grown up treated as girls share and that are in play when women discuss with each other the threat of violence or the experience of violence. Ms. nixon grew up as a boy, lived and was treated as a man until she was 30 years old.
Since 1973, when Rape Relief began operation, we have worked with thousands of women both as callers in crisis and as volunteer workers. On the whole we do very good work and provide many women with an opportunity to voluntarily organize to prevent sexist violence while providing other women a chance to escape and resist such violence effectively. It is important that Sun readers know this about our organization in order to maintain a perspective on who is in this struggle over women only space.
Sincerely,
Suzanne Jay
Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter
Phone: 872-8212
Fax: 876-8450