Beyond Fear Alexa Sardina & Alissa Ackerman-Acklin

As we close out the season, we invite our listeners to submit any questions they may have for the season 2 finale! Send us any questions you may have at beyondfearpodcast@gmail.com
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This episode of Beyond Fear is truly groundbreaking. We welcomed four esteemed guests - Nadiah Mohajir, MPH, Dr. Maryyum Mehmood, Dr. Guila Benchimol, and the Rev. Dr. Danielle Tumminio Hansen - to lead a discussion about sexual harm that occurs across different religions including Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. You may remember that we spoke to Dr. Karen Terry in Season 1 about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. That episode focused on the institutional response to the abuse that was eventually uncovered and what the data showed about those that experienced abuse and those that perpetrated it.
In this episode, we dig deeper and discuss how abuse across these different religious spaces is and is not being addressed. Our guests talk about the scope of the sexual harm occurring, their thoughts as to why sexual harm occurs in religious spaces, the role that lay members of their faiths play in sexual harm, and how this type of harm impacts survivors.
Recording this episode was fascinating and we could have continued talking for another hour or two. We know that you will find it just as informative and interesting as we did! 
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Welcome to Episode 10 Beyond Fear listeners! We realized that it has been a while since we caught you up on the work that we have been doing outside of the podcast. In this episode, we interview each other about the projects that have been keeping us busy. 
Alissa shares her journey of co-founding Ampersands Restorative Justice – an organization dedicated to restoring the world from sexual harm. Among other things, Ampersands facilitates restorative processes for cases of sexual harm and trains other folks to facilitate these cases. Alissa shares what it has been like to see her dream become a reality.
Alexa speaks about a project that is close to her heart as well. In 2020, she and Dr. Nicole Fox found out about the Survivors Memorial located in Minneapolis, MN. It is the first ever memorial dedicated to honoring survivors of sexual harm. Alexa describes what she and Dr. Fox discovered after speaking to the people that were involved in all aspects of making the memorial a reality. She also discusses the next step in their research on the Survivors Memorial which is designed to uncover how it functions in the community as a site of healing, education, prevention, and more. 
We hope you enjoy catching-up with us! Don’t forget that we are planning a final episode dedicated to answering your questions. So, send us questions you have about us, our work, or the topics that we have covered to beyondfearpodcast@gmail.com. 

Additional Readings and Resources:

Ampersands Restorative Justice
Restorative Justice in Cases of Sexual Harm (2022) by Alexa Sardina & Alissa R. Ackerman published in CUNY Law Review
The Survivors Memorial 
Memorial for Survivors of Sexual Violence Vandalized (May 16, 2022) – KARE 11 News
America’s First Memorial Honoring Survivors of Sexual Violence (2022) by Alexa Sardina & Nicole Fox – Journal of Interpersonal Violence
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Throughout this podcast, we have discussed the ways in which sexual harm impacts survivors psychologically, emotionally, and physically. A less talked about consequence stems from abuse that occurs within the context of institutional environments that are expected to be safe. 
In this episode we speak to Dr. Caroline Heldman an expert on the consequences of sexual harm that takes place within institutional environments. Institutional betrayal refers to the harm that an institution does to those who depend on it. As you will hear, this betrayal can be explicit policies or when an institution fails to respond to sexual harm. This is often seen in the context of college campuses, the military, and religions organizations. 

Additional Readings and Resources:

Faculty Against Rape
The Hunting Ground
End Rape on Campus
The New Campus Anti-Rape Movement: Internet Activism and Social Justice – Caroline Heldman, Alissa R. Ackerman, and Ian Breckenridge-Jackson
Blowing the Whistle on Campus Rape – Caroline Heldman, PhD and Danielle Dirks
Institutional Betrayal and Institutional Courage – Dr. Jennifer J. Freyd, PhD

Guest Bio:
Caroline Heldman, PhD is Chair of the Critical Theory & Social Justice Department and Chair of Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She is also Executive Director of The Representation Project and a political commentator for Spectrum and CNN International. Her research specializes in media, the presidency, and systems of power.
Dr. Heldman has published six books on gender justice and politics and her work has been featured in numerous documentaries, including Miss Representation, The Mask You Live In, The Hunting Ground, Informant, Equal Means Equal, Liberated, Nevertheless, and The Great American Lie.
 Dr. Heldman splits her time between Los Angeles and New Orleans where she co-founded the New Orleans Women’s Shelter and the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum. She also co-founded End Rape on Campus (EROC), Faculty Against Rape (FAR), and End Rape Statute of Limitations (ERSOL) that successfully abolished the time limit on prosecuting rape in California. She is currently curating the first Civil Rights museum in New Orleans with Miss Leona Tate, one of the four little girls who desegregated the Deep South in 1960. 
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In our last episode, Who is the Ideal Victim? we spoke with Dr. Danielle Slakoff about media depictions of survivors of interpersonal and sexual harm. Specifically, we unpacked the way that race influences media narratives about who qualifies as a “real victim” worthy of help and sympathy. Black and Latina victims are frequently portrayed as somehow to blame for their victimization. 

The sexual harm experienced by Black women and girls is often undisclosed, unaddressed, and unseen. In this episode, Dr. Carolyn M. West and Dr. LaDonna Long share their work that exposes the ways in which Black women and girls are treated not only by the media but also by the criminal legal system and its actors. 

Much of our conversation centers on the need to understand and acknowledge our country’s racist past in order to make sense of the way that Black women and girls are treated by the criminal legal system. For most of this country's history the rape of Black women and girls was not illegal because they were considered property and were not seen as human beings. This permeated our legal system, and the consequences are still felt today.  

Ultimately, it will take all of us to make the changes necessary to reverse these injustices and we hope that our conversation will take us one step closer to understanding the way forward. 

Additional readings and resources:

Love with Accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse – edited by Aishah Shahidah Simmons
Pornography Consumers of Color and Problematic Pornography Use: Clinical Implications (2022) – Carolyn M. West, PhD
Mammy, Sapphire, and Jezebel: Historical Images of Black Women and their Implications for Psychotherapy (1995) – Carolyn M. West, PhD
Let me Tell Y’all bout Black Chicks: Images of Black Women in Pornography by Carolyn M. West, PhD
Sara Bartman – Black Past
Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood by Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Blake, and Thalia Gonzalez 
Race and Prostitution in the United States by Donna M. Hughes
New Docuseries ‘Hunt for the Chicago Strangler’ focuses on Murders of Dozens of Black Women over 20 Years – Fox 32 Chicago
Surviving the Silence: Black Women’s Stories of Rape by Charlotte Pierce-Baker
Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation by Beth E. Richie
Black and Missing Foundation
Black Women’s Blueprint
We as Ourselves

Guest Bios:

Carolyn M. West, PhD is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Associate Dean of Special Initiatives at the University of Washington. She is an award-winning author, internationally recognized speaker, documentary filmmaker, and expert witness. For more than three decades, she has been investigating gender-based violence, with a special focus on domestic violence and sexual assault in the lives of African American women. Her mission is to deliver keynote addresses, conduct workshops, and customize innovative training material to educate and equip professionals with the skills to provide culturally responsive services. Her vision is to educate, empower, and inspire a multicultural alliance of survivors and professionals to prevent all forms of violence.

LaDonna Long, PhD is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Roosevelt University. Her research focuses on women’s experiences with victimization, particularly how race, class, and gender influences post-assault coping mechanisms. Her prior work focused on age and educational differences in African American women who have experienced sexual victimization as well as factors that predict disclosure of sexual victimization to health professionals. She has also published work on medical advocates’ experiences in the emergency room with survivors and law enforcement as well as vicarious trauma.
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Throughout season 1, we have discussed how society, often times through the media, blames survivors of sexual violence. Frequently, media portrayals impact trial outcomes, a survivor’s willingness to report, and more. In this episode, we speak to Dr. Danielle Slakoff, a professor and prominent researcher that studies the ways in which the media inaccurately portrays survivors of domestic violence and sexual harm. 
During the episode, we also talk about ‘the ideal victim’. According to her research and analysis of newspaper stories, women that are missing, that experience sexual harm or domestic abuse are portrayed differently based on race. The ideal victim has historically been white women and girls. They are frequently portrayed as being blameless and in need of protection. Black and Latina women, women that do not conform to this stereotype, are often blamed for the victimization. 
According to Dr. Slakoff’s research, Latina and Black women and girls were portrayed much more negatively than the white women and girl victims. Specifically, they were portrayed as risk-taking at the time that the crime occurred and somehow responsible for the harm they experienced. This deep dive into the ways in which the media influences the way we think about who experiences harm and why is a critical piece of a broader conversation about race and the criminal justice system. 
Additional Readings and Resources:
Media Messages Surrounding Missing Women and Girls: The “Missing White Woman Syndrome” and Other Factors that Influence Newsworthiness - Danielle C. Slakoff and Henry F. Fradella
A Timeline of 22 Year Old Gabby Petito’s Case - CNN
White, Black, and Latina Female Victims in U.S. News: A Multivariate and Intersectional Analysis of Story Differences - Danielle C. Slakoff and Pauline Brennan
How Social Media Shone a Light on the Lauren Smith-Fields Case - Time Magazine
The Black and Missing Foundation
Restoring Justice for Indigenous Peoples
Guest Bio:
Dr. Danielle Slakoff is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at California State University, Sacramento. Her research interests include media representations of women and girl victims and perpetrators, women’s issues within the criminal justice system, race/ethnicity, true crime, and domestic violence. Dr. Slakoff’s commentary on media portrayals of the justice system has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Time Magazine. You can find her on Twitter at @DSlakoffPhD. 
Follow us on Facebook at Beyond Fear: The Sex Crimes Podcast, on Instagram @beyondfearpodcast, and on Twitter @fearcrimes. If you have questions about this or any of our previous episodes, or if there is anything you'd like to know about our work, we hope you will email us at beyondfearpodcast@gmail.com or you can contact us on our site here.
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