Brogan: It Has to Be About More Than One Month!

The month of April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month. A great deal of discussion ensued. The Concord Monitor’s Alyssa Dandrea did a powerful series of stories about how sexual assault impacted the lives of some brave women who told their stories. However, what happens next will truly show what we have learned about not only sexual assault but the treatment of women in today’s world.

I grew up in a time (the 1950s and 1960s) when it was acceptable in some circles to consider women to be less than equals. Fortunately my own parents and the friends that surrounded them, were not prone to conduct themselves in that way. Once I went out into the working world, I was shocked by what I sometimes found to be acceptable.

Theresa Cantin, the owner of the Concord Theatre, told me of the time she attended a film exhibitor convention in Boston. She was the only female theater owner at this meeting of more than 50 men. Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of the future President, and owner of the Maine-New Hampshire Theatres Company which owned both the Capitol and Star Theatres in Concord, felt that women had no business owning a theater. It was fine to have them selling tickets or working in the concession stand, but not to be running a theater. When Theresa arrived at the convention, Kennedy loudly announced, “Here comes the fat French bitch!”

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When I worked at the Motor Vehicle Department in the John Morton Building, back in the 1970s, there was a small group of the “old boy’s network” who regularly made disparaging remarks about women.

To register your car, transfer plates, get a license, you entered the building and walked down a long flight of stairs to the counters. A handful of employees seemed to act as though some of the women were walking on a runway at an old burlesque theater. If a woman was dressed in what would be considered the fashion of that time, it was not uncommon to overhear one of these individuals note, “You can tell she’s asking for it with that outfit on”.

To my everlasting shame, I didn’t speak up nor did anyone else although it clearly bothered a great many staff members.

Should the subject of rape or sexual assault come up, it was always the woman’s fault so it’s not surprising that so many victims were reluctant if not downright terrified or reporting any kind of assault.

I was raped in the Grafton Dorm at Plymouth State when I was a freshman. It happened more than once, although the same individual was involved. One time he held a knife to my throat. Like so many others – female and male – I didn’t say anything, although it effectively ended my college going days at Plymouth. For weeks I hide out, escaping back to Concord and avoiding going to classes. I flunked out after less than one semester and while I tried to subscribe to the adage about “If you don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist” – it did.

There were no hotlines in those days more than 40 years ago, nor was there any resource to turn to in order to find information. Instead you kept it in with the result being, in my case, an eating disorder, suicide attempts, depressions, and strange behavior. A part of me died and a certain wide-eyed optimism about life was forever lost.

It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that I openly talked about it when I began undergoing therapy with former Concord Mayor James MacKay. Jim helped me to talk about it for the first time but, for me at least, reliving the experiences only seemed to plunge me further into an abyss. I also spoke with then Monitor reporter, Bob Hohler. The resultant story only served to make me retreat further after I was approached by someone who stated, “Don’t you people usually like it a little rough?”

While you never fully recover, there are ways to learn to cope and one of the ways to cope is by sharing the experience and in the process helping others lose their fear of talking about what happened to them and removing the stigma attached to sexual assault. In my case, it was writing my book, “Was That a Name I Dropped?” and writing in detail about the assault and hearing from so many readers who’d had similar experiences but had not been able to share them.

Finally, on April 18, 2012, I returned to Plymouth State to speak to a group, about my experiences. For decades I had avoided going anywhere near Plymouth, but my return enabled me to discover how much had changed and how many resources were now available to those needing an answer or place in which to turn.

We all need to continue the discussion, to not blame the victim, and to find ways to help those who have been assaulted, to heal. It cannot be just about setting aside a month to have those discussions but to have them be a part of our everyday life.