Listen, Learn, Act: Chessy Prout's Journey Continues with #IHaveTheRightTo
By Charlotte Cook
Chessy Prout is no stranger to stories of sexual violence—she wrote one herself. Her memoir, I Have the Right To: A High School Survivor’s Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope, recounts her experiences. She was a freshman. He was a senior. She testified against him, and her school turned against her. So, she spoke louder.
Her advocacy trended under the hashtag #IHaveTheRightTo, encouraging a change to the victim-blaming narrative surrounding sexual violence. Alongside her family, Chessy transformed this community into an organization that provides a safe place for survivors and allies to share their stories and support one another.
The Fem Word first spoke to Chessy in 2018, where she talked about her journey as a survivor, the struggles of speaking up, the online hate she received, and the importance of education to teach about mutual respect. Then, in 2020, The Fem Word’s Monika Samtani interviewed Chessy and her father, Alex, about the role of allies, particularly among the male population, in creating change and supporting survivors
Now, we get to hear from Chessy and her family again and learn about allyship and how I Have a Right To and its values function in the midst of a global pandemic.
Chessy Prout with her father Alex (left) and mother Susan (right) 2017
The pandemic has seen a startling rise in domestic violence, at least a 25% increase in 2020 alone. How does I Have the Right To seek to support survivors of domestic violence, and what can people do to approach this issue (especially now when everyone is so isolated)?
I Have The Right To encourages communities and loved ones to listen, learn, and act: hear survivors’ accounts without prejudice and fault-finding, understand how sexual assault devastates and affects people, and provide a loving community for victims of sexual violence, one that is growing every minute around the world, and learn how to help children achieve an education free from sexual assault. We are grateful for being able to reach young people through platforms like TFW.
Having a strong community is essential to helping survivors speak up, but you’ve mentioned that many victims lack such a support system, especially within families. You had that support with your own family. What do you think is the most important thing for family members to do when a survivor comes forward with their story? Where else can survivors find support?
Sexual assault is a crime of power and control and is so often swept under the rug, so it’s really important for family, friends, and trusted adults to acknowledge and validate the survivor’s experience and to support them in their journey to regaining power and control and towards healing. Support can mean listening to the survivor, offering non-prescriptive words of affirmation and information about local and national resources, and educating yourself on trauma responses. Many of these resources are available on our website, ihavetherightto.org under the “Resources” tab!
What are you grateful for today?
I am so grateful for the community of survivors and activists I have been able to meet and become friends with who have helped me on my healing journey. I’m also grateful to my friends and family who stood by me and who are also passionate about creating a culture of consent to replace and eradicate rape culture.
Chessy Prout speaking on a panel for Together For Girls, a global partnership aimed at eliminating sexual violence against children. PHOTO: Zachary Rosen / Together for Girls
(To Chessy’s parents, ALEX and SUSAN) There’s a lot of focus on the change and advocacy that younger generations are bringing about regarding gender violence, and they’re becoming increasingly educated with consent programs and sexual assault statistics. How can parents and older generations help with the movement? How important is it that they speak up?
Parents are responsible for the well-being of their children. It is what we do. We need to create a safe and supportive environment where adults will listen and believe victims when they come forward with their truth. You are correct, so much awareness raising and advocacy work is happening from the younger generations. But the older generations are in positions of control, power and influence, and for change to occur, we need greater involvement and action from adults. We can create a virtuous cycle of belief and support which will encourage more victims to come forward if we use this energy of the young to generate greater knowledge and empathy across our society.
(to Alex) In our last interview (Jan 2021), you said that in today’s society men tend to be in the front seat, and also that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of sexual assault, and thus it is vital that more men support the fight for justice in sexual assault and gender violence. What are some ways that men can be allies, especially during a period of intense isolation?
Sexual assault is a men’s issue. Men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of sexual violence. We need to focus on the perpetrators and discuss how to address this issue. Why do men rape? Why do our institutions and society turn a blind eye to sexual violence? Do we believe that sexual assault is wrong? If yes, what will we do about it?
The first step to any change is to listen and learn. The data tells us we all know a victim of sexual violence. This is not an abstract phenomena. But our culture and society conditions us to be silent when it comes to sexual violence, to even place blame and shame on the victims. This has allowed the heinous crime of rape to continue unabated and for rape culture to the operating norm in many parts of our culture.
Men are the architects and keepers of many of the structures that make it so easy to turn a blind eye to rape. Men can be the agents of change as well.
The Fem Word interviewed Chessy in 2018. Learn more about her story and #IHAVETHERIGHTTO:
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the interviewee, and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Fem Word organization. Any content provided by our interviewees are based on their opinions and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.