UBCM: UNION VOTES TO FIGHT RAPE CULTURE

UBCM votes in favour of setting up task force to deal with the problem

Margo Wagner and Joan Sorley had been friends for years before each learned the other had been raped.

The B.C. politicians were drawn to each other, among the few women on the Cariboo Regional District’s board of directors, but it took time to share their sexual assault stories.

For Sorley, her rape happened 50 years ago when she was 14 and babysitting. Sadly, she said, she wasn’t surprised to learn about Wagner’s trauma.

“We know how pervasive it is,” she said. “I’ve spent the last 50 years, probably, being ashamed of this without really realizing that’s what I was feeling.”

On Thursday, the women spoke about their experiences before local politicians at the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Vancouver.

After a rousing and emotional debate, the union voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution calling for a task force to determine how to end the rape culture that is “pervasive in schools, universities, workplaces and elsewhere across Canada.”

Delegates also voted to ask the task force to look at ways to improve reporting, arrest and conviction rates across Canada.

Sorley said that rape culture had existed since she was assaulted decades earlier, though the phrase is still new to some.

While the resolution didn’t define rape culture, Sorley cited examples of what it looked like: a Pitt Meadows teenager forced to drop out of school after photos of her alleged assault were circulated, and University of B.C. students singing “rape chants.”

“Nothing has changed in 50 years,” she said.

“And so, you know what, now I’m mad. And I think we need to change it.”

Wagner said she didn’t report her rape 43 years ago and wouldn’t report it if she were raped today because there is no “easy way” to get justice.

The 62-year-old said it was incredibly hard to speak publicly about her assault, adding she had been stopped countless times in the convention centre lobby or bathroom by women who recounted being raped, too.

She said the goal wasn’t to create a task force but to pressure provincial and federal politicians to address the problem.

View Royal Mayor David Screech criticized the resolution’s wording, saying he didn’t believe rape culture was “pervasive.”

But Smithers Coun. Greg Brown said he had spent enough time in hockey dressing rooms to know the culture is real. “These ideas exist and they linger in our culture, in video games, in conversations with boys that are 11 years old using the word ‘rape’ not even knowing what it means.”