On November 30, 2017, I attended a sexual violence teach-in that was facilitated at San Diego State University (SDSU). The event began with a brief speech by Dr. Doreen Mattings, the Chair of the Women's Studies Department at SDSU. Dr. Mattings spoke about how sexual harassment was a term that was initially defined during the second wave feminist movement to put a label on behaviors previously perceived and dismissed as “just the way life works.”

Additionally, Dr. Mattings shed light on an undeniably sad truth of our nation: its deep roots of sexism in the political system and its effect on the society as a whole. To support this claim, she specifically referenced the fact that the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, just so happens to be a self-proclaimed sexual assailant himself. Dr. Mattings concluded her portion of the event by commemorating those who she personally considers to be huge contributors to the exposure of such sexism in politics: female journalists.

The first official panel speaker was a psychologist at SDSU’s Counseling and Psychological Services named Mary Joyce Juan. She began her speech by asking the audience about how we felt about the recent political events. Many of the emotions that came up in the conversation included disgust, confusion, anger, and sadness. She emphasized the importance of allowing yourself to show and experience such emotions. She then discussed various ways in which you can deal with your emotions, especially after having gone through a very traumatic event such as an experience involving some sort of sexual assault. The true answer to how to recover from such an occurrence is extremely subject to the individual. She spoke about how it is perfectly acceptable to not talk about how you are feeling if you truly do not want to and instead focus on other ways to indulge in self-care. Such examples that I thought about during this speech included going to the gym to work off stress or anger, yoga, or perhaps extra sleep when necessary.

The next two speakers were confidential victim advocates on our campus: Lauren Murcko and Nicole Teran. The two speakers highlighted how sexual violence and racism have been continuously used as tools of oppression to obtain power and how the two are closely intertwined with the history of the United States itself. They also spoke about how modern-day media still portrays and enforces harmful stereotypes. I believe that social media is extremely powerful and can be used to promote ideas to a broad range of people. Today, many companies and organizations are attempting to change the way in which social media has been traditionally used. It is becoming increasingly more common for feminist and other activist ideals to be spread through such platforms, thus signifying a notable societal improvement.

The following speaker, Jeff Bucholtz, is a professor at SDSU and works for “We End Violence.” Jeff gave a wonderfully moving and captivating speech on the topic of toxic masculinity or, in other words, “masculinity as dominance”. He stated that our ingrained idea of masculinity is that it often entails more than simply obtaining power: it is the idea that, in order to be “masculine”, one must have power over someone or something else (that someone often being a woman). Jeff gave a shocking statistic taken from SDSU’s 2015 Climate Survey to further prove his argument of the oblivious sexism still present today. One of the questions of this survey asked students if they felt that the reason behind why many guys rape is because of an uncontrollable desire for sex. In 2015, 35% of men agreed with this statement, and in 2017, a shocking 50% of men agreed as well. This was just one example of how normalized sexist actions have become and have always been.

Jeff ended his powerful rant by stating that it is in our hands to make a change. One way he suggested that we do this is by joining or creating our own social activist organizations on campus. He also reminded us of our duty in playing the part of “hype people” for others. By this phrase, he meant that we need to express our support for one another in order to empower those who are brave enough to stand up against sexism in all forms.

The final panelist was named Liat Wexler. Liat is a training specialist for SDSU’s Counseling and Psychological Services. Liat brought up a very interesting fact that, although evidently a very marginalized group in terms of our Western society, the LGBTQ community still hosts perpetrators of sexual violence. He talked about how no one likes to confer about the predators in marginalized communities. This is often due to the real fear of membered victims that if they voice out against the wrongdoings of someone in their community, it may worsen the overall conditions of their community because of how people will try to manipulate such information. Hearing this fact makes sense but is something I never really considered much before. It did indeed further complicate the conversation about sexual violence. However, maybe complication is exactly what we need. Maybe confrontation and debate will be the motivator behind further debate that results in progression of some sort.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this panel discussion because each of the chosen panelists brought something different and unique to the conversation. I think that variation in the debate is extremely important because the long issue of sexual violence is not one-sided. There are so many factors that attribute to the issue, indicating a broad range of areas that we as a society need to tackle. Going off the words of advice of Jeff Bucholtz, I am now even more inspired to go out and think of creative and innovate ways in which I can evoke a significant level of change in societal perceptions of what is morally right and wrong. I realize that every change is significant in the fight for equality and I am looking forward to pursuing such actions in the near future.