A woman describes her experience of gender based violence.
She explains why she does not identify as a survivor,
“The thing is, if anybody else told me the kind of examples of things that I’ve seen or things that have happened, I would say actually that is exactly what it is.
But the way people respond when you tell them initially is something that kind of depletes how it feels.
The first person that I told on the phone, told me it was a rite of passage, and just what happens in clubs.
I think initially, I would have said yes. But the way that people respond and the idea that there is hierarchy of sexual violence. I think it’s completely ridiculous, but the way people respond to things changes how you feel about it.
So I think if you’d asked me when it happened, I would say yes because of what I understand gender based violence to be, but also how I felt about it. But now, given the way that people have responded and the way that I processed things based on people’s response, my instinct is to say no.”
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