The Story of Rape Crisis in Dunedin - A Discussion with Dr Cindy Hall, Angelo Libeau and Dr Leehe Vardi
In 1971, a small group of women in Dunedin began holding meetings to discuss the ideas of Women’s Liberation, and they called themselves the Dunedin Collective for Women (DCW). This was a consciousness-raising group, and some of its main concerns were equal pay, good childcare, women’s control over their bodies, and the ending of stereotyped gender roles (Rape Crisis Dunedin: Herstory, http://www.rapecrisisdunedin.org.nz/herstory.htm).
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Dr Leehe Vardi gave a rundown on the beginnings of the DCW and Rape Crisis. When the DCW was established in the seventies its members were predominantly Pakeha and heterosexual women. Later the group became more diverse in terms of sexual orientation as quite a few lesbian women joined their ranks. After Rape Crisis kicked off in Dunedin similar centers began to open around the country and in 1984 the groups connected with one another and became one united organisation. Rape Crisis considers itself to be bicultural and supports Māori women and whānau whenever needed.
Rape Crisis has two main areas of focus. The first is the telephone support service and responding to the clinical and counselling needs of those who phone in or walk in. The second is education and the facilitation of conversations within the community in order to prevent the sexual violence from occurring in the first place. The staff and volunteers at Rape Crisis go out to high schools and into the community to carry out training in issues relating to sexual violence. Most of their education is in high schools but sometimes it is with organisations and businesses or with someone who will walk in and want a one-on-one training session. They have a set of 6 customizable workshops and they do copious research in order to work within the organisation or structure of the institution they are asked to educate. Some of this training is around the ACC sponsored programme called Mates & Dates and a lot of it is about teaching young people about consent, healthy relationships, identity, and keeping each other safe. Angelo Libeau told us that the demand for the education programs that Rape Crisis provides is increasing and that schools are becoming more aware of how crucial they are. In terms of the two focus areas Dr Hall noted, “in either one of those there’s a ton of work to do. Pick up both of those as your overarching goals then its limitless in what you can do. If you think about it, rape prevention? We’ve been working on it forever and there’s a ways to go.”
Rape Crisis is structured as a collective in a similar way to how the DCW was organised. Elizabeth Harrison who has written on the collective felt that the new women’s movement could never have had so much energy without this structure and the belief that every woman had something to contribute (Elizabeth Harrison, Women’s Liberation in the Far South: The Dunedin Collective for Women, thesis). Libeau explained the reason for this structure being applied to Rape Crisis:
"Rape Crisis is quite a radical organisation – we talk about capitalism, hierarchies – we work in an area where power and control are ultimately what we are focused on. We have to practice that as an organisation and we do that by being aware of our own power and privilege. So having an organisational structure that deliberately distributes power and decision-making is important. We don’t make decisions without each other – a lot of those principles that we apply to support workers – we’re not going to have power over you – we will come to agreement about what the outcome is going to be together. It makes people self-reflexive as well, they see themselves as equally responsible in preventing this and supporting one another."
How Has Rape Crisis and the Services it Provides Shifted Since its Inception?
Rape Crisis is addressing a really important need and one of the issues it has had to struggle with is the overloaded mental health system. Hall stated that as the “mental health service in general has become overwhelmed and more and more degraded, Rape Crisis has gotten more and more busy.” This has meant that over time the cases that Rape Crisis is presented with have become more complex and acute as people who are desperate and are unable to access the public health phone into their hotline.
Alongside this development has been the constant struggle to find funding throughout the organisation’s existence. Rape Crisis is providing a crucial service that should be fully funded by the government but is not, and it has to struggle every day to provide necessary support. Dr Vardi was critical of the neo-liberal focus on business structures and competitive funding that the organisation has had to grapple with, which takes money and time away from providing the services that are so crucial: “The work keeps increasing and the demand keeps growing. It’s a lot of energy to go through those funding applications and get declined and you have to apply again and again. We employ someone to do that work and it’s insane and they could be doing the support work or we could employ another councillor to stop us from having a six-month waiting list. It’s broken.”
A positive development in the running of Rape Crisis has been its increased openness to the transgender community and a deeper understanding of the complexities of gender. Angelo joined when he was in the process of transitioning and pointed out that feminism has been trans-exclusionary in the past and in some pockets continues to be so today, but one way for any organisation to become inclusive is for people from the trans community to be present and to consistently have a voice. Angelo feels that the atmosphere of honesty and support has been vital: “going through it was really organic – we worked as a collective and we were all really invested in each other’s well-being. So if I was feeling uncomfortable it was everyone’s responsibility … we have been able to keep each other in check all the time and we have a really self-reflexive environment where we can call each other out.” This has led to long term, complex and sustained change in the organisation and today Angelo is not the only transgender person working at Rape Crisis. As a result of this process a lot of the wording around policies, resources and training has been and continue to be updated.
In terms of men coming to Rape Crisis for support they will never be turned away. However, because a specific form of training is needed to support a male survivor and the counsellors employed at Rape Crisis are overburdened as it is, male survivors are often referred onto another service such as The Next Step (an initiative of The Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust). They are also able to turn to ACC sensitive claims support or private counselling.
Rape Culture and Feminism:
Dr. Hall is critical of how rape culture is often dealt with: "I think that one unfortunate thing that’s happened historically and continues today is that the onus of responsibility is put on women for what happens [sexual assault]. So women get messages like ‘you need to travel together’ or ‘have one person that doesn’t get drunk’. The underlying message is that it’s a woman’s responsibility to not get raped. I’ve got a serious issue with that. I think that it’s the man’s responsibility to not do the raping."
Dr. Hall’s main critique of the feminist movement is that “people who have lived their lives as females get really good at ‘getting at each other,’ and we are our own worst enemies to each other. I think that’s the biggest thing that feminism has to watch out for is that we don’t undercut each other.” Dr. Hall suggested that instead of attacking each other for not being good enough feminists, we should engage in a conversation with one another where we can teach each other about our stories and perspectives.
Dr Vardi feels that the waves of feminism have been defined retrospectively and is interested to see how the future will define the feminism of our times. In regards to feminism Dr Vardi noted: "I think it’s a way of life, it’s a philosophy, it’s an ideology and I think that anyone can define themselves as a feminist. I don’t think that defining yourself as a feminist equates to you being better than someone else and/or equal to someone else because every situation is different and some of us are just more privileged than others. No feminist is the same as another and every fight is different. Yes I agree that there are general fights we can join forces for but a lot of them aren’t about equality for women. I’m not saying it’s not a justified cause but it can’t be in isolation to other causes. I think that fighting for the rights of queer people, people with a disability and fighting for the fact that there’s a lot of children in NZ that are under the poverty line and are being abused – I think that’s as important as fighting for equal pay for women and I don’t think that can be viewed in isolation."
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If in need of help or support call Rape Crisis at: (03) 474-1592
If you are male and in need of help or support either call the number above or contact: (03) 377 6747 or email mssat@survivor.org.nz
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