Amazing Women Speak! April 2014 | Page 12

molestation, changing careers, telling their story from a place of power, sharing with others their “good news” and showing up in all places full of love and life and wonderment. “Healing” is possible and that is our motto...it requires work, but it can be done with the right support. a single offender, 78.1% were committed by men and 18.5% were committed by women. AWS: What can men do to help stop abuse? Kalimah: Men can help stop abuse by talking about abuse with other men. Men can stop rape by understanding the patriarchal system that we live in that supports the rape culture. Rape is about power and control, not a desperate need to have sex. It is the desperate need to overpower someone and using rape as the method to totally dominant and terrorize the victim. What we know at the SASHA Center is that there are more men in the world who are NOT abusing women and children than that are. The problem is, the non-abusing, nonoffending men are not engaging with men (on a more regular and deliberate basis) who are most likely to rape and batter. Every October, SASHA Center has an all-male panel discussion about intimate partner violence against women/men-perpetrated by men. Men can join women in efforts to educate the public about violence against women. Men can help us to 12 AMAZING WOMEN SPEAK! help them have open discussions about their own abuse. are vulnerable to rape and need healing. Sasha Center is planning an all male drumming circle for men survivors of rape with a focus on black men in Detroit. SASHA Center hopefully in the future will provide programming that includes a discussion of how rape used to happen, now it does not happen at all and the reason why is because we changed the attitudes and beliefs of society and rape no longer exists. There are many men involved in doing this work and we need more. Tony Porter, Dr. OliverWilliams, Father Orr and many others are doing this work. Visit www.mencanstoprape. org to find out more. multiple offenders, 75.7% were committed by only men and 24.3% were committed by both men and women. AWS: When do you consider what you have done to be a success? Kalimah: I am always striving for better. I will know it is a success when each and every time we hear a survivor say that they are on their journey because of our work at the SASHA Center. AWS: What is your dream for SASHA? Kalimah: My dream for SASH