About 80 per cent of victims of sexual assault in Canada know the accused. They are partners, friends, acquaintances, co-workers –people in relationships with one another.
It’s a disturbing statistic. The fact that sexual violence is very much about interpersonal dynamics is also, in part, what makes the issue so complex, says Dr. Jessica Wright, assistant professor in the Department of Sociology. But for such an undeniably complicated and difficult subject, conversations too often lean on language that is overly simple and often binary: Consent is yes or no. Sexual violence either happened or didn’t. A person accused is either guilty or not guilty.
We spoke to several faculty members and staff at MacEwan whose work aims to “complexify the conversation” about sexual violence, to use the words of Dr. Amanda Nelund. They’re tackling the issues head-on with research that explores consent, assesses risk and seeks to repair harm.
Beyond tea: Complexifying consent
If you were learning about consent in 2015 (or in the few years that followed), you might have seen this animated video that claimed understanding consent was as easy as a cup of tea. It was a clever, straightforward way to explain a complex concept.
Because when you boil it down, consent is simple, right? Wrong, says Dr. Wright, whose research with undergraduate survivors of sexual violence offers another perspective.
"When we get into the nitty-gritty of consent, there are many grey areas," she says. And while she adds that she has seen some cultural change around the perpetuation of victim-blaming rape myths, there are still many questions around the grey areas of consent and scenarios where sex is less than fully consensual. There might not necessarily be a perpetrator in every case, but there can still be harm.
In one of Dr. Wright’s most recently published studies, she digs into those grey areas through the lens of youth trauma survivors, many of whom are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, disabled, first-generation Canadian and 2SLGBTQ+. The psychosocial impacts of the trauma those participants experienced – including dissociation, acquiescence, hypersexuality and substance use – can complicate what consent might look like. Some youth might be culturally socialized not to assert themselves in contexts of abuse because of racialized or gendered norms, for example. And women survivors, in particular, may struggle to assert their boundaries or suppress angry feelings to avoid a negative reaction.
Centring conversations around the experiences of individuals who have gone through complex trauma and are among the most marginalized based on their identities can offer a way forward, suggests Dr. Wright.
For Dr. Wright, complicating the consent conversation also means asking whether or not consent – a concept that comes from the law, is transactional and is rooted in contract – is the right way to approach the nuanced, complex issue of sexual violence.
“I think we're much more likely to cast a wider net in preventing sexual harm if we insist on nuancing understandings of consent,” says Dr. Wright. “In grey-area scenarios, we see just how complicated consent and sexual violence are, and how much they tie to interpersonal dynamics.”
What if, instead, she asks, we shifted the consent conversation? Approaching consent from a different perspective – perhaps one of interdependence or mutuality that focuses on a relational rather than contractual approach – could address the need to perceive complex non-verbal cues.
"I think it's time to start raising questions about what consent does – and to address the fact that there are a lot of people who do not fit into the binary yes/no framework," says Dr. Wright.
She also suggests that the way forward could mean looking differently at people who have caused harm.
Unravelling ideas of who causes harm
Rather than having an accused person focus on the harm they have caused, the criminal justice system, says Dr. Wright, forces them to begin defending themselves immediately.
She adds that being on the defensive doesn't promote the healing we need. "It doesn't allow people – even people who have committed egregious harm – to reflect, grow and unlearn things so they can return to the community as meaningful members."
Focusing on repairing harm opens the door for restorative justice approaches, which, Dr. Wright says, begins with unravelling our ideas about who causes harm. Roxanne Runyon, sexual violence prevention and education coordinator at MacEwan, agrees.
“Part of our work is undoing the idea that perpetrators are these bad, scary ‘other’ people who we can clearly identify, when, in reality, people accused of sexual violence are most often people we know – our friends, family, neighbours, or other people we’re in community with,” says Runyon. “In fact, we are all swimming in an ocean of rape culture. We are all part of it, and we all have the capacity to cause harm – and to repair it.”
That thinking is behind an evidence-based respondent education program that the university’s Office of Sexual Violence Prevention, Education and Response will implement over the coming year. The voluntary program for students who have engaged in sexual violence is based on the thinking that people have the capacity to grow and be accountable for their actions.
“Offering this program as a way for individuals to learn and change after they’ve harmed someone is, perhaps unexpectedly, part of being survivor-centred in how we respond to sexual violence,” says Runyon. “For many survivors, justice involves the perpetrator coming to understand the harm they’ve caused and changing their behaviour going forward.”
Assessing risk and moving forward
Using evidence-based methods to inform the kinds of assessment, reporting and training Runyon mentions is one of the focuses of Dr. Sandy Jung’s most recent work.
For years, the psychology professor’s research has focused on forensic psychology – sexual assault, pedophilia and intimate partner violence. Now she’s taking her experience working with police services on risk assessment tools and finding ways to bring those evidence-based approaches to non-forensic environments, such as educational and business settings.
Some of that work involves looking at interviewing techniques, rapport building and risk assessment techniques that are integral to probation and therapy within the corrections field and translating them to be helpful in institutions that are focused on preventing sexual violence.
“There isn’t an instruction booklet for building a safer society,” says Dr. Jung. “While policies may be well-established across different institutions, processes to effectively investigate and assess sexual violence might not be.”
Part of Dr. Jung’s work focuses on developing a tool to help administrators and sexual violence support staff at post-secondary institutions assess whether respondents to allegations of sexual violence should be offered supports, be suspended or be removed from campus.
“Making decisions about whether a person can or can’t continue to be a campus community member based on their actions is difficult and has serious implications for everyone,” says Dr. Jung. “We need more research to make those decisions effectively, using evidence-based practices.”
It’s why her research focuses on using assessment tools effectively and looks at whether the approaches themselves are valid in these new contexts.
This is among the work Dr. Jung does for Courage to Act, which seeks to address and prevent gender-based violence at Canadian post-secondary institutions. She, Dr. Wright and Runyon have all contributed to the federally funded project, which creates materials and resources used by institutions nationwide, including MacEwan.
Addressing sexual violence within campus communities is also the focus of a recently published book by Dr. Amanda Nelund and Dr. Joanne Minaker.
Interrupting violence and complicating the conversation
A few years before #MeToo, back when MacEwan’s Office of Sexual Violence, Prevention and Response was in its infancy, Dr. Amanda Nelund reached out to her colleague, Dr. Joanne Minaker, for help.
“It was my first year of teaching, and essentially, one of my students was sexually harassing me,” she says. "Like so many others, it didn't cross my mind to access institutional processes. Instead, I talked to someone I trusted."
Because the two sociology profs study gendered crime and violence, they did what academics do – studied the issue and reached out to their colleagues. The result was Violence Interrupted: Confronting Sexual Violence on University Campuses.
The book combines perspectives across disciplines and draws from diverse methodologies – survey data, educational programs, photography projects, autoethnography, legal case studies and policy – to extend the conversation about sexual violence on campuses.
Their goal? “To complicate the conversation,” says Dr. Nelund. “Sexual violence is not a simple problem with simple solutions, but in all sorts of institutions, including universities, we tend to try to oversimplify, overpromise to people who have experienced sexual violence, and lean too heavily on policies.”
Creating positive change, says Dr. Minaker, means addressing sexual violence in ways that resonate with those who have experienced harm and challenging some of the structures within which we work.
“In many ways, sexual violence is about disconnections,” says Dr. Minaker. “But it’s not just the disconnection between the perpetrator and the victim. It’s also the disconnection sexual violence creates within oneself – our sense of safety, autonomy and agency.”
And while relationships are crucial to understanding the cause of sexual violence, they also have the potential to lead the way forward, says Dr. Minaker.
“We know that support – not going through these experiences alone and isolated, and having places, people, opportunities and resources on this journey can be transformative.”