December 26, 2017

How I Survived Sexual Assault Twice and Learned the Healing Power of Advocacy

  [caption id="attachment_1999" align="alignleft" width="240"] Mae Flores on her way to TEDx Hoboken at O’Hare International Airport on November 2, 2017.[/caption] By Mae Flores It was my final year at Hinsdale Central High School. I was 18 years old. My family was on a cruise in the Caribbean during the New Year’s holiday. That was when it first happened. I always was a happy kid and grew up with privileges most kids could only dream of while living in a western suburb of Chicago. I had strong female role models in my life. Some people associate being victimized with poverty. I was the opposite....

September 20, 2016

SOMETHING WORTH FIGHTING FOR

By Mary MacLaren        Duty, honor, country. This, we’ll defend.” “Not for self, but country.” “Aim high…Fly, fight and win!” U.S. Armed Forces slogans These lofty goals embodying long-standing traditions of the U.S. armed forces are words I live by—especially “Aim high,” which I now bring to my role as chair of the Workplace EAP Task Force for Chicago Says No More. As an officer for 23 years and a colonel in the Air Force for six, I know about the challenges experienced by women in the military. In 1985, I had just graduated from the National War College (NWC). My new boss, also an NWC grad,...

September 22, 2015

Consent and Sexual Assault: What You Need To Know, What You Need To Teach Your Kids

Consent. A simple word when you look at it. But never has a single word been so widely associated with non-verbal actions assumed to convey its message. Was the fact that he was flirting with me consent? Was the fact that she came home with me consent? General usage regards consent as: an agreement or permission to do or allow something. And therein is the problem. Consent for sexual activity cannot be subject to interpretation. Our language must be clearer. For years, courts and legislatures have tried to define consent. New York followed California as the second state to mandate that colleges...

August 31, 2015

First Response: The Importance of Listening When Sexual Assault Survivors Tell Their Stories

When New York Magazine published their now-iconic cover story featuring 35 women who reported that, over the course of many years, Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted them, social media was ablaze. With Cosby having admitted in a deposition to using Quaaludes with women, it seemed the tide had begun to turn from the aggressive doubting of these women’s accounts to a reluctant acceptance that perhaps Cosby had actually harmed them. Within their stories, and within the stories of so many of the survivors that we at Rape Victim Advocates (RVA) have served in Chicago since 1974, there’s a shared pivotal moment that deserves...

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