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Awareness Test

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Awareness Test

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Dear Engaged Bystander: I am the mother of two kids. I know that affects my perspective. When I look around me, I “see” sex offenders every day. I see an adult alone in the video arcade and wonder why he is there, I see a father taking too many pictures of the young girls at a birthday party, I see a girl on the beach hug a 5-year old boy for way too long and does not notice that he wants to get away… So while I do love the work that I do, I find that my thinking is skewed in a way that others are not. I don’t want anyone to carry the number of stories that I have in my head. But I do want people to have some of the awareness. 

 
So I wonder sometimes how others could miss something so obvious. Here is a great example of how that happens. Take this awareness test:
 
 
 
I think that their point is great. It is easy to miss something you are not looking for.   All of us in the sexual violence prevention field are looking, watching, and bringing a sense of awareness that few others have. 
 
In the original bystander research, by Latane and Darley (1969), the first step for the engaged bystander was to “Notice the Event”. I believe that ALL of us working to prevent sexual violence have that innate ability/learned skill to see behaviors that are of concern to us. But for many others in our daily lives, they can’t even imagine sexual violence and therefore they don’t perceive it.  
 

“Telling stories is as basic to human beings as eating. More so, in fact, for while food makes us live, stories are what make our lives worth living.”

On Stories by Richard Kearney
 
 
The easiest way to make it conceivable is to tell stories – simple easy to understand stories.   Tell stories about what you see and how you respond. Especially stories BEFORE sexual abuse has been perpetrated. 

 

 
Your stories will give others a chance to see the world through your eyes and maybe, the next time they see what you see, they will also respond as you responded. 
 
Warmly,
Joan

 

Topics: Bystander