Resisting Violence

Resistance to violent behavior requires work on three levels:

• The individual: both women and men must engage in resisting violence, albeit in different ways oftentimes.
• The local community: Most true social change only occurs when an entire community is committed to making that change, even if it takes a long time. The community might be a small group of people who have connections to a survivor, or an athletic team, a fraternity house, a neighborhood, a university campus, or even a whole city. If you want to get directly involved, there are several avenues available:
  • Sexual Assault Resource Agency and Shelter for Help in Emergency both depend on volunteers to staff the 24-hour hotline. They also have Community Education programs the rely on volunteers. The UVA Women's Center's Young Women Leaders Program gives UVA women students an opportunity to empower middle-school girls. And the Sexual Assault Education Office has programs that students can get involved with as well.
  • UVA students can join peer education groups:
    • SAFE (Sexual Assault Facts & Education): a coed peer education group that offers basic awareness training, bystander (ally) intervention workshops (Mentors in Violence Prevention), and assertiveness for women. Reach them at safe-mvp@virginia.edu.
    • SAPA (Sexual Assault Peer Advocates): a coed peer education group that seeks to promote a culture of support for sexual assault survivors at UVA through presentations to groups and advocacy on behalf of survivors in the community.  Reach them at aem6s@virginia.edu.
    • One in Four: an all-male student group that trains other University men on awareness, empathy for victims, and how to help survivors. Trains members at the end of fall and in early spring. Membership by nomination only. Reach them at owner-oneinfour@virginia.edu.
    • Peer Health Educators: coordinated through the Health Promotion Dept. of Student Health, this group focuses on education students about health sexuality, and a variety of other health-related issues.
• The world: Individual and community-level work has a ripple-effect, and can ultimately improve the lives of all human beings. Global change can happen in small ways: by writing a letter of complaint to an advertising agency, by lobbying your Congressional and state elected officials, working through the internet or by forming coalitions with groups around the world. Join organizations such as NOW, the Feminist Majority Foundation, Amnesty International, or locally, groups such as the Virginia Organizing Project, that link sexism and violence with other forms of oppression.