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Words by Alexandra SudlowHaylett and Shona Edwards
Earlier this year, as a bystander, I reported an incident to Safer Campus Community regarding a persistent and concerning case of harassment within the disability community.
This harassment continued for so long because the young neurodivergent victims gave the perpetrator the benefit of the doubt as the perpetrator was also neurodivergent. The victims of this abuse felt unsure about their own interpretation of social cues. They struggled to describe their discomfort and identify what the panicked, stomachdropping feeling in their stomach meant. The fact is, if someone makes you uncomfortable, for any reason, even if you’re not sure how, and even if you think they don’t MEAN to make you uncomfortable… that is not okay. You deserve to feel safe. Good intentions don’t negate one’s negative impact. But it’s so hard to even recognise that these behaviours are unacceptable when you have so much doubt and fear. We know the University of Adelaide has a history of sexual harassment, and we need to pay attention to how that impacts the most vulnerable members of this community, for whom the doubt and fear are overwhelming. My experience of making a formal complaint as a bystander made me very aware of how difficult that process is. I
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could not, in good conscience, tell my disabled and neurodivergent friends to submit a formal complaint like mine because the experience was so disorienting, isolating, and alienating. I don’t say this with the intention of dissuading you from reporting, but to prepare you – you will need support. The difficulty I felt was not unique to my case, but an institutional problem. Sara Ahmed’s 2021 book Complaint! gave me the language I needed to describe this experience, and to define the internal and external ‘difficulties’ that I felt myself up against. Lesson 1: By requiring victims and bystanders to submit individual complaints and placing the burden for collecting evidence and administrating the complaint on the complainer, complaint processes atomise and isolate the complainer. This teaches us that complainers are kept unaware of the existence of other complainers. Lesson 2: The absence of other complaints can make it even harder to recognize there is something to complain about. This teaches us the importance of bystanders and validating that the behaviour isn’t acceptable. Lesson 3: Those who most need to complain are those who cannot afford to complain. This teaches us about the importance of solidarity from allies who do have the capacity to speak up.