3 minute read
UVM People
WORKING TO PREVENT SEXUAL VIOLENCE
By Joshua Brown
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ELLIOT RUGGLES, LICSW, PH.D.
Elliot Ruggles wears his heart on his sleeve—almost literally. He points to a drawing on his sweatshirt that shows an anatomically accurate heart. “It’s a piece of pride for me to show my heart, to show up, as Brené Brown says, in a wholehearted way. Wholeheartedness, that’s what I’m talking about.” Then he smiles and laughs and points again to the heart drawing, a muscular, four-chambered organ: “What I love about this one—you probably can’t see if from here—is that this heart has a word on it: human.”
Last February, Ruggles joined the UVM community as the university’s first-ever sexual violence prevention and education coordinator. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College—who later earned master’s degrees in social work and human sexuality education as well as a Ph.D. in human sexuality studies from Widener University—Ruggles uses “he/him” pronouns and “they/them” pronouns. The complexities of gender are of deep importance to Ruggles—as is a view of our common humanity.
“Sexual violence, gender-based violence, and relationship harm is happening in our community here at UVM. And it happens in a lot of communities all across the country and all across the world,” Ruggles says. “So, I think a lot about: how does this happen? And what can we do to prevent it and support survivors?”
One place to begin, Ruggles thinks, is by pondering desire. “How do we think of ourselves as sexual beings?” he says. “I definitely believe in the power of comprehensive sexuality education, seeing relationship education as a mandate for global citizenship.” In programs being developed across campus—partially in response to student activism over the last few years—Ruggles is helping to lead peer-education and masculinity education efforts.
“Some of us were taught to name and voice our desires and society taught us that they'd be listened to. That often boils down to male entitlement. Other folks have been socialized to not be in touch with their own desires and, additionally, if their desire is stated, it may not be respected,” Ruggles says. Traditional self-defense, adjudication, and safety measures are critical, Ruggles notes, but more is needed. “Training in what is sometimes called ‘empowerment self-defense’ can help people to get more in tune with: ‘What are my desires? And what are my boundaries? And how do I communicate those effectively?’” He’s working to bring these kinds of programs to UVM.
One in five women in America have been raped—and 81% of women and 43% of men have experienced sexual harassment or assault, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. “These explicit acts of violence are not uncommon. They're very common. And yet that violence stands on a foundation of behaviors that are even more frequent in our culture,” Ruggles says. “I'm thinking about glass ceilings and ignoring women and femmes; about media representation, including sexually explicit media; about so-called ‘rape jokes’; about ‘locker room talk’ and ‘boys will be boys’ rationalizations; about hypermasculine norms. We need to talk about these things, get educated.”
College is often a time of extensive exploration—and fun. “We all want to have a good time. If we're able to attend to issues of harm that happen within our communities, we can ensure that folks actually do, at the end of the night, say that they had fun. I'll be frank some people have fun at the expense of other people's harm.” Ruggles points to the importance of education about consent, alcohol, opting-in to sexual relationships, and networks of men and others standing up against “a culture that goes silent against rape culture,” he says. “Some of those changes might be uncomfortable in order for us to actually move to a place where people experience less harm in our communities.”
Conflicts and misunderstandings are part of being human. Ruggles wants to hold perpetrators of sexual violence to public account. “We need to listen to survivors and believe them—they’re the canary in the coal mine shouting, ‘Something is not right!’” he says. And Ruggles’ work also seeks to build a resilient, forgiving community at UVM and beyond. “Can we experience conflict, potentially even experience harm as a result of that conflict, and still move forward together in relationship? These are big questions of the cultural moment that we're in,” he says. “How do we create boundaries for ourselves, and safety, but, at the same time, not dispose of people?”
