Sexual Assault Awareness: Ending Victim Blaming and Building Safer Communities

In this episode Mandi Pratt breaks down why victim-blaming culture persists, where it comes from, and most importantly what we can ALL do to dismantle it: one conversation, one word choice, one moment of showing up at a time. 

Drawing on her own powerful story of survival and resilience, Mandi shares practical tools anyone can use to trust their intuition, set boundaries, and create communities where survivors are believed and supported.

This episode is for everyone: survivors, allies, students, parents, and anyone who has ever wondered what they can actually do to make the world a safer, more peaceful place. Because it turns out the answer starts closer to home than most of us think.

RESOURCES

Hassl.Uk for free courses men (or anyone) can take

Bloom365.org for victims AND those who cause harm and violence

Past episode: Empowering Bystanders

RAINN: Sexual Assault Hotline

Connect with Mandi:

• Website: WomenAwareAndPrepared.com
• Take the Free Intuition Quiz: WomenAwareAndPrepared.com/Quiz
• Instagram: @WomenAwareAndPrepared
• LinkedIn: Mandi Pratt

The primary purpose of the Women Aware and Prepared Podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute advice or services. Please use common sense for your own situation.

Transcript

Hey everyone. Thanks for tuning in. This is the Aware and Prepared Podcast helping you learn to live safer with more peace. I'm your host, Mandy Pratt, a certified victim advocate, and speaker. 

In this episode, I am sharing parts of my keynote that I will be giving twice towards the end of the month because April is sexual assault awareness month, and I'll be speaking at two different colleges. 

But before we dig in, I just wanna say we will be talking about sexual assault. So this is probably not good for little ears. You might wanna listen to it first everybody's at different maturity levels, so I'm not sure where your family stands, but just giving you a heads up, you might wanna listen to this first, and of course if anything's triggering, please take a break. Pause this, come back to it later. Or don't, or skip over. You know, the part that I'm talking about that is triggering, um, I won't make it too triggering, but I just wanna give you that heads up 

So let's start with the elephant in the room. What is the problem? Clearly the culture that got us here. We see systems today that remind us how much work is still left to do, and that frustration is valid. When the powerful escape accountability, it sends a message to every survivor that their truth does not matter. But today I'm here to say something different. Your truth does matter, and this community sees you. And change starts right here in conversations like this. 

I just wanna give you some stats. So some of you may have heard general stats about safety, specifically women's safety and violence to women from men. But let's talk about campus stats. So one in 16 men and one in five women experience campus assault, sexual assault, and LGBTQ plus students face even higher rates across every group. 

Most never report. Why not disbelief? Trying to understand what happened, shame, which, ugh, I have a lot to say about that. It doesn't belong to US victims. It belongs to the perpetrators. Fear of retaliation, seeing no justice. Right. And then we have secondary trauma, like institutional betrayal, which means being disbelieved or blamed after the assault. When you come forward to report it, this compounds and prolongs harm. So PTSD turns into complex PTSD. That was my experience. 

And why do survivors have the burden of proof? Why? Huh. Systems and deeply embedded social narratives, minimize, distort, or excuse assault like we see almost every day in the news right now. But the thing that I really wanna hit on today, and also in the keynotes that I give at the colleges is language. Language perpetuates. This victim blaming. So I want you to stop just for a minute right now, and think of a time that you heard blame directed at a survivor. What words could have shifted it? Maybe you heard, why didn't she fight back? Or what was she wearing or they had been drinking, 

but what about instead, we flipped the script. And don't put the blame on the victim, but put it on the perpetrator. Why did he do that? We need to ask better questions and we can provide more supportive language to victims. Instead of questioning them, we can say simply, I believe you. This was not your fault. What do you need? So we can truly support survivors with the awareness of our language and better choices for language and not just truly support survivors, but hold perpetrators accountable. 

And another factor is language that we tell ourselves, right? Why do we override our intuition? Our body knows what's going on, right? Our intuition is our survival mechanism. I say that a lot on this podcast. Our brain is collecting subconscious clues, but our body is doing the racing heart, A tight chest, having an urge to leave, right? That's all data. So our nervous system is running a threat assessment before our conscious mind catches up. 

So our intuition is not paranoia normally, unless maybe you're super stuck in hyper vigilance. And that's a whole different topic I'm not going to go into, but your intuition is not paranoia. Almost all the time. It is just wisdom. It's your body actually helping you, your brain collecting the subconscious clues, but we tend to override it because of social conditioning. Be polite. Don't make a scene. Give people the benefit of the doubt. But this conditioning is heavier for women, people of color, and LGBTQ plus students. We get stuck in this. Maybe I'm overreacting loop. And it unfortunately keeps people in unsafe situations longer. 

Just a moment of reflection for ourselves. Think of one situation in your life where you felt something was off and you trusted it. Didn't that help you trust yourself more? What would it mean to trust that instinct more consistently? 

I do have an intuition quiz on my website, so that's aware and prepared life slash or back slash, I should say, quiz aware and prepared life slash quiz. You can take that and see how you're doing on your intuition, and that leads you into a intuition challenge that helps you strengthen it. So what if you did not trust your intuition and trouble happened? Is that your fault? No, it's not. 

Remember, we're conditioned to not make waves and you only know what you know when you know it. And who really is responsible for assault and violence? The victim. No. The one causing the harm. 

And what about consent? We didn't when I was younger, but nowadays we talk about consent and I feel like this is such an important conversation, not just in a sexual context, but also in relationships. Just consent and respect. 

So the stats show that about eight out of 10 sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the survivor in familiar places in the home, in the workplace, et cetera. I mean, in the news, there was a CNN article recently that came out from the uk and they were sharing some really staggering stats that. There's 60 some million men a month looking up how to rape somebody. And a lot of these men are even people that are married and they're looking up how to drop sleeping pills into their wives tea so they can. Rape them when they're unconscious and some will even go further and video that and sell it as a commodity. So they unopened that and really Gisele Pelicot um, a couple years ago or a year ago, opened that up when she came out and shared that she is. A victim of her husband doing that to her, and in fact, while she was unconscious, other men would pay to come in and have sex with her. So everybody was just appalled by that. When that came out. 

A lot of you probably saw that in the news, and now we're seeing this. You know that this is not a one-off occurrence. Most people figured out this was not a one-off occurrence, but it's actually a lot, and so I. I just wanna point out that a lot of times the sexual assault is committed by somebody known to the survivor in familiar places, and I just wanna pause in a little offshoot here and say Women are so tired. Women are so mad. Women are so frustrated because we already feel like we're not safe. And then to really realize that we're not safe at home with the people we thought we were safe with. 

It's exhausting. So men, we need your help and I'm gonna share some resources and things that you can do. So hang in with me. I wanna also flip the script and talk about, you know, the perpetrators. You might hear from somebody who. Does the sexual assault, but she was quiet, but we had sex before, but they didn't say no. Right? 

So consent is a two-way clarity check. It requires full awareness and it can change any time. You know, maybe there was consent before, but now there isn't. So a no is a no. And that's clear. It's non-negotiable. It doesn't mean convince me otherwise, right? I'm not sure is also an a no uncertainty. Is also a no, it's not a green light. Being under the influence is not consent. If you're under the influence, you wake up the next morning and don't remember what happened. It's horrible. Silence or freezing. Or a change in body language, that's not consent. 

So checking in is a sign of respect and emotional maturity. What's the goal? The goal is to be respected and supported. Right, and consent is coercion free. Yeah, there's no manipulating, there's no guilting, there's no pressuring. You know, well, we've been together for this long, so I just thought X, Y, Z, or I have helped you so much and so, you know, I kind of feel like you owe it to me or where would you be without me? Or you know, I just really need this right now. That's all coercion. That's not okay. 

So maybe you or somebody you know, are the ones who push past somebody's no, whether just when they're trying to set a boundary or in a moment of intimacy, that's worth noticing. And perpetration often happens in the absence of self-awareness and clear boundaries in one's self, seeking help is strength. It's not weakness. 

So the same courage we ask of survivors, we're asking of those who've caused harm. Resources exist for people who want to understand and change their behavior. There's all kinds of resources. I will leave in the show notes, but if you go to Hassl HASSL.uk, you'll see they have free. Education. They're free courses for guys to take or for couples to take together to help the guys understand what's going on and what they can do. 

And I just wanna say, of course, guys aren't the only perpetrators, but they are the majority. It's in the 90 something percent. So another resource is Bloom 360 five.org. I love that they don't just help victims, but they also help those who are perpetuating violence and harm. 

So to wrap up this section about consent, checking in with a partner is not a buzzkill. It's a sign of maturity and respect and talking about maturity and respect and rounding this back out to what I was talking about. 

Consent isn't just for, you know, the sexual situation, but it's also for. And a relationship, are you showing respect by, you know, do you just grab their phone and just start digging into it and stuff? Like say, Hey, do you mind if I look, I'm gonna just, look up the photo from last week when we were there at the party or whatever, or, hey, um, do you mind if I add. Sophia to the group chat, would that be okay with you? Right. So it's just thinking of other people having empathy and having respect and maturity. 

So we've talked about listening and heeding our intuition. We've talked about language and clear communication. Right? With consent, we're talking about clear communication. And now we move on to supportive language in setting these boundaries, because boundaries are how we honor what our intuition is telling us. 

Let me repeat that. Boundaries are how we honor what our intuition is telling us. And there's three types of boundaries. There's physical. Your body, your space. There's emotional, what conversations you engage in, what you share, who has access to your inner world, and then thirdly, digital, your location, your images, your dms, your passwords, right? You have a right to know your password and not wanna share it with somebody just because you're dating them, you don't owe them your password. 

So boundary setting can feel hard. Guilt. I don't wanna hurt their feelings. Fear, what if they get angry? What if I get rejected? Cultural messaging, women especially, are socialized to accommodate and disrupting that takes practice. So it's important to reframe. The boundary is not a rejection of a person. It's a statement of your own needs. Let me say that again. A boundary is not a rejection of a person. It's a statement of your own needs. And let me tell you, this is a really good test when you set a boundary to see what kind of reaction you're going to get, right? This will show you really quick if you're with somebody unhealthy, if they can't heed your boundary, then that's a huge red flag. 

So walking through some scripts to practice out loud. Remember, we're talking all about language and how to use language to support survivors and to keep perpetrators accountable. Some scripts that you might wanna have in your back pocket just for when something comes up and you need this. Here's a simple one. No. And then don't say anything else. Us women, we wanna continue on with. No, I'm really sorry. I wish I could, blah, blah, blah. Nope, just no. Or I'm not comfortable with that, that's another one. Or I need to think about it, I'll let you know. But then do let them know. Don't ghost them. Or another one is, that's not okay with me or, or you might need to say, I said, no, that's my final answer. Or I'd like to leave now. And what happens if they don't listen? Repeat and repeat. Of course. Use your best judgment if you're not in a safe place. 

So which of these scripts do you feel like could be something that you might remember and use? Remember just simply no. And then don't laugh, right? You need to be firm in that. I'm not comfortable with that. I need to think about it. I'll let you know that's not okay with me. I said, no, that's my final answer. I'd like to leave now. So for me, I have too much in my brain, so I just need to pick one. So for me it's, I'm not comfortable with that. And that way I don't get all, you know, messed up when I'm trying to say it 'cause it's just the same every time. I'm not comfortable with that. So hopefully one of those scripts will feel like something you might remember and use or springboard into thinking of another one that might be a better fit for you. So. 

The key message here is that your mind tells you something is wrong, and your voice is how you act on it. Again, focusing in on language. So more about the language that supports survivors. 

What about disclosure? That's what it's called when a victim. Tell somebody what's happened or that something's wrong. So what does believing a survivor actually look like? It's listening. Without interrogating, it's resisting the urge to ask. But what did he do? You know, what did you do? And I have to say in my past, I didn't know this, so when somebody would disclose, I would ask for more information, but that's not what the victim is looking for. And when I was certified as a victim advocate, going through all of that training, um, I learned more about that. And, you know, just as a victim myself, I think about that and what would've been helpful and that's not helpful. 

But hearing somebody say, when I'm disclosing I believe you, and meaning it, those three words, I believe you are clinically significant in trauma response. You can ask, what do you need right now? And if you don't know, you can let me know later. A lot of times they won't know. So don't pressure them into what you think they should do. I know a lot of us are fixers. I'm that way. So my natural inclination is to say, okay, I have this number right here. We need to call this number, this hotline, you know? But sometimes they're not ready for that. And if we force them into that, that's the whole power and control wheel, you know, which they just tried to get out of. What's that? Power and control right? From being assaulted. 

So don't. Pressure them to report. Just support their autonomy in the decision when they're ready and say I have resources for you when you're ready. And I'm happy to even go into our student mental health and wellness center together. I'm happy to do that. Or we can call a hotline together so you don't feel alone. And when you're ready I can like hold your hand through that if you would like that. And of course, if you're on a campus, it's so important to know where the counseling and even the Title IX center, the offices are, and campus security before you need them. Right. So those are real people who are trained and ready and they know exactly what to do for you. So you're not alone. You will have the resources you need if you want them, right? 

So nobody should be making you do anything. It's just baby steps. So maybe you tell a friend to begin with and it's never too late to tell, or maybe you. Speak with it with a counselor, or maybe if you're on the college campus, you can go into one of these offices. So there's definitely so many resources out there. So, so many. But I understand as we were talking about before, why it's difficult for people to report. 

So in accountability, in supporting survivors, it's also holding your friend group accountable. Right? Guys, especially, it's challenging those jokes. It's that dismissive language. It's the demeaning comment that you hear, or even the bystander silence. We did a episode not that long ago with Kelly from Pure Praxis about bystander interactions and what you can do. We talked about distracting and delegating and all of that. And if you're afraid of flack, you can even say, you know, Hey, I've got a sister. I wouldn't want anybody to speak about her like that. You know? Or would you say that about your own sister? There's so many different things you could say, and then it makes you think like, do you wanna be friends with those people? Right? So think about it. 

And if you're feeling like there might be a situation, never hesitate to call the police or the campus security. You pay for them and they want to help. So please dial that three number, phone call nine one one. Or if you're on, um, campus, they have a number there. You see it around the campus. Um, you can call that there. 

In moving to collective power and tangible support and really digging into this, what do we do about the sexual assault and the horrible systemic issue we have, especially right now, it's just out in the news all the time. People are dealing with invisible pain that you would never know about. You know, a lot of people see, they know me and then they hear my story, you know, and they're like, what the Miss Mandy? Like, how are you? Okay. I never would've known that about you. You know, uh, my story I shared in episode one and two, people are dealing with invisible pain that you'd never know about. 

I'm sure a lot of you have invisible pain that some people don't know about, and everybody always ask me like, how did you get better? And I've done a lot of work that just started with little baby steps, finding safe people, finding resources, spending time in nature. I go on and on about this in so many other episodes. So how can victims take care? We can take care of our nervous system. It's not optional. It's actually essential for a living. And thriving. And if we don't, it comes out sideways through our health. Right? Your body can't handle the high cortisol levels all the time like that. Trust me. I know. Because I'll do another episode about my body breaking down from all the high cortisol level, living in hyper vigilance for freaking ever. 

I talk a lot about on my social media, Instagram, women aware and prepared and other places I talk about, I will take a mental health day, I'll take a vacation. Even though I'm so busy, I have so much to do, but I need to lay it down for a day and just take a, a short little cation, right? Or even take a walk outside, even for like two minutes to go get my mail. Do it during the middle of the day when the sun is out and I go out and get fresh air. It's micro nature moments, looking up at the sky, feeling the grass sitting outside, walking to my mailbox, like I mentioned, and it's safe. Relationships surrounding yourself with safe relationships. Talking to a friend who holds space without judgment, that is one of the most powerful healing tools we have. So ready? You know, right here, and it's free. So really. 

Spending more time with those safe people and choosing your circle carefully. Aligning yourself with people whose strength and values lift you up and finding out what works for you. I mean, I did talk therapy for years, but it wasn't until I started doing other things. Somatic release, um, whole person integration. That a counselor, a trained counselor, can walk you through maybe even EMDR or EFT tapping, you know, for some of us that have trauma stuck in there, especially, um, those of us with complex PTSD or even just PTSD, which is also horrible. Um. That trauma is stuck in your body, so you need to get it out in a safe way, guided by an expert. So, um, some days are harder than others, of course, but each day. You move forward, forward, forward and you might have a backwards day, but then you move forward, forward, forward. So you're still moving in the right direction. 

Um, and I talk to a lot about not forcing affirmations. They always need a factor of curiosity. So I'm not gonna force myself to say, I am safe. I am safe. 'cause my brain wants to fight that. Really am I, so instead I'll say I am feeling safer and safer and that makes my brain look for it. So it actually helps me be safer. So interesting how that works. Um, and I've mentioned that in other podcasts as well. 

So really lean into those safe people, lean into those resources on your campus or just in general. And I'll put those in the show notes again. Use those resources. Go to hassell hssl.uk. Take the free course. It's so quick. I just was going through some of the modules and they're just really fast, but helpful and they will help you know what to say and talking through a partner with this or a family member just to help them understand. 

The mental load that women especially are dealing with right now with the issue of safety and peace. So to wrap this up, we spoke all about language and how that's the key. We need to shift out of that victim blaming and shift those systems and every single. Chance, that comes up where you can use different language or challenge people on their language just from the heart of curiosity, not judgment. Will help. So victim blaming is a learned response and it can be unlearned. 

It really starts with that language, becoming aware of it, and then choosing different language. And secondly, your intuition and your voice are tools, right? So we're trusting our mind and we're using our voice. Remember the scripts, I'm not comfortable with that or simply no. And then lastly, I just wanna say that one person who shows up with belief and support for that victim, one person who addresses their own tendency to not heed a no. One person who calls out their buddy on the demeaning joke about women, right, starts to turn the tide of these systems and these cultural narratives that keep us stuck. That one person can be you. The words we choose matter in how we talk about survivors and how we talk to survivors, and how we show up for each other and in how we talk to ourselves. So say it with me if you want. I choose to live in peace and safety. I choose to live in peace and safety. You're a part of this. 

Thanks for tuning into the Aware and Prepared Podcast. Curious how tuned in your intuition really is. Take the free quiz at Aware and Prepared Life and get your score. See how sharp your inner guide is. You are worthy of a safe and peaceful life. Talk with you next week and please share this episode with someone who came to mind while you were listening. Click on the top right menu in your podcast app. It might just be what they needed today.