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Raising Awareness of Gender-Based Violence Through Collaborative Ventures.

Updated: Oct 16, 2024

By Dr Susy Ridout

Collaborations are a vital way of working that allow us to address the diverse issues faced by neurodivergent victim-survivors of gender-based violence (G-BV) along our pathways of recovery. Being able to share and confront the feelings of isolation felt following an attack can be immensely empowering as they can be overwhelming. My personal experience is that those that have supported me are the only ones who have seen and understood the emotional and psychological scars that I carry. These people, are the ones who have not walked away, are shining stars who have not judged, and who do not believe the abundant myths about sexual violence.


People who know me have been asked, why I had not disclosed sooner? Well, the short answer is that I didn’t feel safe, or have the words that I needed, but now I do. Now I have both the words and the means to tackle unfounded outsider criticisms that have brought the message that just maybe my disclosure was invalid, and that I was in some way to blame. It was not, and I am not. It is the perpetrator who is always to blame. Collaborations will provide a space for people to examine a wealth of concepts such as these and evidence how these relate to our unique neurodivergent worlds.


My insider experience has shown me that as survivors we cannot assume disclosure to be ‘safe.’ Society and attitudes have to change, so collaborations play a crucial part in raising awareness about G-BV and obstacles neurodivergent victim-survivors face as we recover. There is no single context or forum that can be perceived as safe in terms of protecting us from negative judgements, blame and shame. This view this has been backed up over several years by evidence from other survivors in the field.


Lotus Collaborations will utilise a wide range of events activities in our aim to inform others of the challenges faced by neurodivergent victim-survivors of G-BV, such as intrusive and voyeuristic questions and judgements from outsiders to our experiences. Exciting and innovative collaborative ventures have an essential part to play in addressing these issues and our feelings of isolation, and collaborators will be able to raise awareness of G-BV, and shine a light on toxic individual and societal attitudes impacting negatively on our wellbeing. At the same time, they will be provided with a space to share and deepen their own knowledge and expertise, aiming to plant seeds of hope for change moving forward.


The arts and issue-based arts work have a pivotal role in drawing people to projects as being able to express oneself creatively can be both cathartic and empowering. Additional activities such as discussions, consultation, and training will encourage collaborators to investigate diverse perspectives around sexual violence and recovery and explore issues such as tackling misogyny and toxic masculinity, which damages men and boys in addition to women and children. Lotus Collaborations will aim to facilitate both fun and more formal activities whereby victim-survivors may regain power over their voice and switch the focus from past hurt to the present, and with moments to dream of new futures.


Examples from my personal collection as to why training, consultations and collaborations are so essential include the following two experiences:

Firstly, where one might be tempted to think that health settings could be safe spaces, my experiences with some have been to the contrary. I asked for my medical notes to have added that I am a rape survivor as I have frequent hospital visits and would want practitioners to be particularly sensitive around my care. Wishful thinking! I have had one practitioner tell me that: “people like you [a rape survivor] need to go and see a psychiatrist”. This was bad enough, but I had gone to be referred to a hearing aid specialist. So, this irrelevant and unpredictable comment provoked a shockwave of trauma which was difficult to handle, and which has left me anxious about the repetition of such an event. This clearly compromises my personal health care.


The second example I am providing occurred in a Higher Education setting, where the statistics regarding prevalence of sexual violence on campus are shocking. A senior member of staff asked if I was feeling better now having been raped! As a comment totally out of the blue, this again triggered flashbacks, shock, and trauma and it is a strange question bearing in mind that ‘getting better’ following rape is not, in my view, a thing. You get better from a cold, but not rape as you are constantly navigating a pathway of recovery. This type of comment demonstrates a profound lack of training and awareness on the part of the questioner, and more so in that there is no accompanying willingness to accept responsibility for the impact of this.


Both incidents described above were totally inappropriate and unprofessional, but neither comment was handled correctly by the health care provider or institution and serves to illustrate our vulnerability as victim-survivors. That I had chosen to disclose for two entirely different reasons, first to inform and hopefully improve my health care, and the second to demonstrate my passion to inform educational institutions about the prevalence of sexual violence within society and these settings have in both cases been turned against me. I have been blamed and shamed and exposed to a traumatic grievance process within the education setting that in no way supported me as a survivor. Yet I have found my voice, and will use this to defend myself and support others.


If anyone reading this was astonished by what I have recounted, there is much evidence to corroborate my experience. Furthermore, the fact that most incidents of rape are either Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), or where the attacker is known to the victim, highlights further the obstacles we encounter disclosing to family or friends. Victims cannot rely on support from these quarters, and this is seen by many losing family and friends as a direct result of their subjection to sexual violence.


As a unique challenge that every victim faces, this needs to be addressed in order not to become an additional layer of trauma to which we are exposed. We need time and support with our recovery journey, not obstacles placed in the way of achieving that goal. Society needs to remember the atrocity of rape, and that for an individual to begin to talk about it is an extremely brave step. We do not need to be vilified because we have spoken out. Those services who support us recognise this, but this practice needs to spread. For this reason, I am suggesting that neurodivergent victim-survivor voices are placed centre-stage in our agenda, and working collaboratively as a way forward since tackling toxic attitudes and behaviour alone is exhausting.


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