On the five-year anniversary of #MeToo, here’s how to better listen to survivors of sexual violence

In September 2019, I watched as thousands of people streamed past my photographs, which were printed on a banner the length and height of a boxcar. The exhibit, part of the annual Photoville photography festival in Brooklyn Bridge Park, displayed eight images from my project Memento.

I began working on Memento in October 2017 in response to the #MeToo movement, which was spreading through my Facebook feed like wildfire. As I scrolled past each story, I was sad — but not surprised — to see how many of my female friends and family members admitted that they had experienced sexual misconduct. No woman, it seemed, was immune.

October 15 marks the five-year anniversary of when the #MeToo movement went viral. It’s an important moment to acknowledge that sexual violence is pervasive in our culture, if under-discussed; one in four women in our country has experienced rape or attempted rape during their lifetimes, and 81% of women have experienced some form of sexual harassment.

Despite how common these issues are, people (especially men) often don’t know how to talk about or respond to sexual violence. Even those with the best intentions can retraumatize survivors by asking probing questions, re-focusing the attention away from the survivor and onto themselves, or diminishing someone’s experience altogether. We must do better.

I started making images of survivors of sexual violence with this in mind. Each diptych in the series shows a current portrait of a survivor paired with a photo at the age they first remember being harassed or assaulted. Captions state the age of the survivor’s first memory, the location of the incident, and the relationship to the perpetrator. The ages I recorded (“six,” “eleven,” “thirteen”) and the relationships (“my teacher,” “my neighbor,” “my family”) show just how common sexual misconduct really is.

By documenting survivors — all from the Philadelphia area — in this way, I wanted to make it clear that women should be believed when they come forward with allegations, and that sexual misconduct is rampant. Most women have been dealing with sexual violence for as long as they can remember.

When I decided to include myself among the survivors featured in the project, I knew that I’d also be opening myself up to questioning. Still, it was jarring to me when, that weekend at Photoville, a middle-aged man approached me with his teenage son in tow.

“Can I ask what happened to you?” he probed.

As I stood before him, my likeness loomed, larger than life, above our heads. Below it, a caption divulged the essence of my memory: “12 years old. The school bus. My bus driver.”

Though this stranger did not know where I grew up, or how I take my coffee, he already knew details even my mom had only recently learned, describing the first time I was made to feel unsafe in my body. I was confused why he needed any more information about what “happened” to me, and what he would do with that information if he received it. This was a story that was hard to share, and the many questions I received in response didn’t make it easier.

When my project was published by Vox in 2018, the most common reply I received from friends and family was: “Why didn’t you tell me this happened to you?” Their responses felt more selfish than empathetic. By centering their hurt feelings, they ignored how I was feeling entirely.

Others seemed to assert blame: “Why didn’t you report your bus driver?”

In yet another instance, a colleague whom I had opened up to asked me rhetorically, “I mean, who hasn’t been assaulted at this point?”

I was flooded with emails and calls from people across the country who responded to my story with admissions of their own: telling me, sometimes in explicit detail, about their experiences of surviving sexual misconduct. I was deeply impacted by their stories but, truthfully, I felt heavy under the weight of their disclosures.

I know that the replies I received were well-intentioned, but they did not support me as a survivor so much as made it harder for me to process my own trauma.

In revealing myself as a survivor, I wish I had been met with understanding and compassion. I wanted to have my experience acknowledged, and my feelings validated. I would’ve appreciated hearing, “I’m really sorry that happened to you, but I am so thankful that you trusted me enough to share that with me,” or, “If you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen.”

If anything, I wish I was asked, “How can I support you at this time?”

I know that I speak for other survivors when I say that no one is entitled to the details of our assault.

If someone shares their experience of surviving sexual misconduct with you, I hope that you express gratitude for their vulnerability and the trust they’ve placed in you. Make it clear that you are willing to listen. Validate what they are feeling. Ask how you can support them. Resist the urge to ask probing questions, assert blame, or minimize the experience you have just heard. These simple gestures go a long way.

» READ MORE: It’s been 2 years since they said #MeToo. 6 local women on what’s changed — and what hasn’t.

And, after you’ve listened to and supported someone, remember to check in with yourself. Second-hand trauma is a normal response to hearing about others’ adversities. You cannot fill from an empty cup.

It has been five years since the #MeToo movement spread virally through social media and, in that time, I would like to think that more people are listening to survivors. Even so, harassment and assault still occur with far too much frequency. When survivors have the courage to share their stories, others must be willing, even when it is uncomfortable, to listen.

Rachel Wisniewski is an independent photojournalist and writer based in Philadelphia.