By Show Up For Her Now · Perspective
Don’t walk alone. Watch your drink. Change your clothes. These instructions ask the person who might be harmed to keep making their world smaller. Our starting point is different: nobody should have to earn freedom from sexual violence.
Ask who is being asked to change.
A conversation about prevention should address the person who chooses to cross a boundary. It should challenge the belief that attention, persistence, a relationship, or a position of power creates entitlement to someone else’s body.
Teaching boys and men not to rape belongs in that conversation. So does teaching people of every gender to respect consent. Naming men’s responsibility to challenge abuse does not mean overlooking men and boys who have been harmed.
Leave room for personal choices.
Someone may choose to carry a safety tool, travel with a friend, or share their location. Those choices are theirs. They are not a test a survivor must pass before receiving compassion.
No one forfeits the right to safety by failing to anticipate another person’s violence.
Make accountability part of everyday life.
Our commitment is to ask better questions: Are we respecting a boundary? Are we excusing pressure? Are we protecting someone’s reputation at another person’s expense? What are we teaching the people watching us?
Prevention should make respect an expectation. Support should never depend on whether a survivor followed a set of rules.
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