Sexual assault can have a serious impact on its victims regardless of the form it takes, warns one Tasmanian support service.
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Sexual Assault Support Service chief executive Jill Maxwell said she disagrees with sexual assault being placed on a spectrum from “worst” to “least”.
“Each of us as individuals are impacted differently by trauma and that's what it is, it’s trauma and how do you gauge what’s serious and what's not?” she said.
“It’s up to the individual to firstly say it was unwanted, there was no consent, the only person to blame for a sexual assault is the [perpetrator], there’s no one else and thats the impact are varied.”
Ms Maxwell said sexual assault is about abuse of power, which is the same regardless of the type of act committed.
“It’s got nothing to do with beauty, it’s all to do with power,” she said.
“It’s a way of the offender having power over another,” she said.
Being a good role model, developing communication skills and addressing gender attitudes early are all key to dropping the rate of sexual assaults, Ms Maxwell said.
She further noted an unwillingness to speak openly about sex and gender can drive young people to other places to learn about it.
“Unfortunately there is a huge percentage of young boys looking to pornography to inform them about sex, so they have quite distorted ideas about what sex is,” she said.
We’ve got to start educating our children, I think that's the only we’re going to start [stopping sexual violence].
- Jill Maxwell
“We’ve got to start educating our children, I think that’s the only we’re going to start [stopping sexual violence].
“We’re talking about respect and having a new generation growing up respecting another individual, whether it’s male or female.”
Challenging entrenched gender stereotypes is vital to changing attitudes that lead to a sense of entitlement over another’s body, Ms Maxwell believes.
“We need to be confronting people when they pass off a derogatory comment about a woman in the form of a joke, we need to be challenging those things and saying, ‘That's not okay’, I think it starts there,” she said.
“It has to start with each one of us, it can’t be, ‘Well it doesn’t affect me, so it’s not my problem’.”
If you need help, call Sexual Assault Support Service on 1800 697 877.
