Interview With Polly Poskin, Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault
ST: So, when did violence against women come into your work?
PP: I remember the New York Radical Feminists held a “Speak Out” on rape in New York City in 1971. I came to understand that if women were to gain equality and be free to move about safely in this culture, we were going to have to have sexual safety. If women were to feel liberated, they needed to be safe. And I realized that if we don’t end violence in women’s lives, women were never going to be safe, free and even remotely equal to men in all the areas of life that we might like to pursue.
ST: Once you decided to commit yourself to this work, where did you go?
PP: The opportunities were not huge. There were rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters, but there was no funding for them. Then, in 1980, President Reagan signed into law the rape crisis services and rape prevention program that contained federal funds designated for rape crisis centers. That helped open up the field for more people to be employed, including me.
ST: Tell me about the early days of your work on sexual violence. What were the challenges?
PP: Well, if we didn’t have bona fide physical evidence that could somehow substantiate the woman’s report of rape, then there was going to be no support for-and no response to-a rape victim by law enforcement and the criminal justice system. In the early days of my work, many of the women coming forward were sexually abused as children or as young teenagers and, now, decades later, were coming forward to get help from us and to tell us what had happened to them. As there became more permission for women to report rape and as women realized they could get the support of victim advocates and have some community back-up, more women came forward in the immediate moments after a rape. There was growing focus on what physical evidence existed in order to go forward with a case. Women began to believe they could report a rape right after it happened when there would still be physical evidence that could be used at trial.
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