In solidarity with the many women bravely coming forward with personal experiences of sexual harassment and assault, Oregon NOW wrote a letter to the editor (“Rape culture at the Capitol: Letter to the Editor“) on the need to change the culture at the Oregon state capitol — and The Oregonian’s editorial board agrees (“Oregon Capitol Needs a Culture Change: Editorial“). But we also know – from the stories flooding the media and from our own lived experiences – that the culture around sexual violence and sexual harassment needs to change everywhere. #MeToo

We invite you to help shape the conversation and build momentum where you live by submitting your own letter to the editor (LTE) to a newspaper in your community. Thanks to the Oregon Alliance Against Violence Against Women for these tips on submitting an LTE:

1. In general, LTEs are short, only 250 words or less. Keep it brief and impactful!
2. Promote a unified message. Consider incorporating some of the following messages or ideas:

• Sexual violence is a pervasive problem in Oregon. It doesn’t just impact individual Oregonians; it impacts families and communities across every corner of the state.
• When people are forced to choose between their safety and their livelihood, no one comes out ahead: not the survivor, their family, their place of business, or the community.
• Sexual violence is a community problem. The community needs to be part of the solution. Sexual violence is more than an individual’s actions, it is influenced by our cultural beliefs, practices, and structures. Together, our communities can change those influences.
• It doesn’t have to be this way. We all have a role in creating the world we want to live in.
• The #metoo campaign began 10 years ago. Let’s continue to talk about sexual violence—and let’s take action to create safe, healthy communities. Our leaders in Salem have supported bipartisan efforts to create more safety for survivors, but more needs to be done.

3.  Speak to what you’re seeing in your community. Have more survivors been reaching out? What types of support can survivors expect when they reach out?

4.  As always, maintain confidentiality.

In solidarity,

Lisa & Michelle

On Saturday, November 4th, South Willamette Valley NOW’s Legislative Task Force hosted a legislative forum in Eugene for NOW members from all over Oregon.

The forum provided an opportunity for NOW members to learn about key pieces of legislation that are expected in the 2018 short legislative session from some of our coalition partners, including Family Forward and Ceasefire Oregon, as well as from legislators and staff from Governor Brown’s office. NOW members discussed strategies for working together across chapters to coordinate and maximize our grassroots advocacy efforts.

Oregon NOW is grateful to the South Willamette Valley NOW Legislative Task Force for taking the initiative to plan and execute the forum and providing an opportunity for chapters to come together. We also thank Penny Okamoto from Ceasefire Oregon and Kate Newhall from Family Forward Oregon for joining and sharing their knowledge with us on key issues like paid family and medical leave, gun safety legislation, stable homes legislation, and more. We also are grateful to State Rep. Julie Fahey, State Sen. James Manning, and Karmen Fore from the Office of Governor Kate Brown for offering their guidance on how NOW members can best work with the state legislative and executive branches to achieve our priorities.

In addition to the upcoming legislative session, much of the discussion focused on the January 23 special election on Measure 101: Yes for Healthcare, which asks voters to support the healthcare plan developed by healthcare experts and advocates throughout Oregon, businesses and unions, hospitals, the AARP and patient advocates. Oregon NOW has endorsed Measure 101 and will be sharing more information in the coming months; if you’d like to find out what you can do to support Measure 101, visit yesforhealthcare.org.

by Elleanor Chin, Vice President of the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Women 

“If you disagree, I’d love to hear your thoughts”

So says David Lickey, public high school teacher in Portland Oregon. He says this in a letter he distributed to staff and the students, attacking the notion that rape culture exists, and propagating false and misleading statements about sexual assault.

Okay, Mr. Lickey, here goes. (And this is for Mr. Lickey because he brought it up, but it applies to Mr. Johnson or Mr. Russell or any of thousands of others.) As a fellow once said, “if you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.” First, Google “Rehtaeh Parsons”. You’ll need a strong stomach. Then, search “Steubenville Alayna 2015”. It sounds like you need the internet to recognize “Brock Turner” as well.

You do all that? Good. Now, a key part of the premise in your May 2, 2017 letter is rape culture is a doubtful premise because you don’t know any rapists (or don’t realize you do). All the men and boys you know agree rape is horrible. Setting aside whether your anecdotal understanding should be the benchmark, you now know of some rapists. Those internet searches will show you the pride of their respective communities, young men who thought it was totally fine to penetrate a woman who was incapable of consent, some more violently than others. If you think any of those events were actually okay – healthy sexual self-expression of young people- then we may be done talking. And I’ll hope none of the hundreds of vulnerable young women you teach have ever come to you scared, or hurt.

Next some facts: you assert rape is committed by a small cohort of violent social outliers. This myth has been disproved so thoroughly for so long, I had to read carefully to see if you were being facetious. Sexual offenses are most commonly committed by men that women not only know, but have existing relationships with: friends, husbands, boyfriends, fathers, and yes – high school teachers (look up that business teacher in Billings).

I don’t know you. I looked you up on the internet. Pictures from 2013 show a fit-looking man with silver hair and an engaging smile. If we met, we might enjoy conversation about being liberals and history geeks. I might never suspect you of being a man to use his power and access to an impressionable audience to demean women and undermine their credibility as individuals, and in the aggregate.

You have the ability to get your personal views out to hundreds of people who view you as an authority figure. You chose to package your ignorance, bounded by your limited personal experience, as dispassionate, measured fact. From there you moved on to suggest that somehow men and boys are the true victims, being treated as monolithic perpetrators of a misogyny that doesn’t exist because in the circles you move, men make themselves emotionally vulnerable in their intimate partnerships.

You have declared your experience, the life of an educated (and dare I guess, white and heterosexual) man, respected in your profession, the arbiter of the validity of everyone else’s lives. All of us are wrong, and have to be educated about the misconceptions of an “ill-defined” concept: every girl who has ever been groped or wolf-whistled on the street, every woman who has been told to walk to her car with her keys in her fingers, every woman who has been threatened in the most violent explicit terms by strangers when they set virtual foot on the internet. You elevated the legitimacy of David Lickey’s life experience over that of each of us who has listened to a man in our family laugh and say “makes you want to go rape someone right now” – when the Take Back the Night march goes by the house. You don’t know anyone like that? Lucky you. You have two choices. You can believe me when I say that I do, or you can decide I must be lying, for the simple reason that I’m not you.

What you missed about the concept of rape culture is: it’s descriptive. We don’t have to “do” anything to formulate it. It is the name we give to how we walk in the world, like it or not.

You say you know no rapists. You’re a high school teacher. You know bright, aggressive, charming young men. The statistics on men who will actually admit to sexual imposition on women means it’s mathematically unlikely you know no rapists. You did not proclaim in your letter whether you know any victims. If you have ever once in your life heard a woman described as “damaged goods,” while a man is lauded for “scoring,” you’ve seen rape culture, live and in the field. Do you know for sure not a single woman of your acquaintance has gone home after a “date” and spent an hour taking a shower and crying? Would they tell you if they had?

​You’re probably having a bad few days. You’ll either learn from it, or identify as a victim (I’m not sure how your belief in the marketplace of ideas fits in with that). I’ll have a drink with you and talk about American history, or chat some more about how we disagree. Coffee or beer. You pick, my treat. If it’s a beer, I’m sure no one will tell you that you have to keep your hand on it the Whole. Time. (just in case).