Through Surviving, Shaping A Culture

Three years ago, when Ali Safran launched Surviving In Numbers, the use of online media to connect survivors of sexual violence was relatively non-existent. It was not, and is still not uncommon for survivors to face privacy concerns, harassment, stigma, and shame when sharing their story both on and off-line. In a climate in which survivors and women in general often face life-threatening harassment and bullying online, advocates encourage survivors to take safety precautions whenever they shared their stories. Recent studies have shown that women under 30 are particularly vulnerable to online harassment, and up to 76% of them face some sort of online abuse or harassment. What’s more, social media and technology remain resources that advocates are only just beginning to explore. Advocacy organizations are using the web to get the word out about access to resources and prevention education, yet developing best practices and models for safely using the web to work with survivors more intensely is in its nascent stages. Surviving in Numbers offers one such promising model.

In 2013, Surviving In Numbers began as a simple poster campaign where survivors of sexual assault could share their experiences. Some survivors created their posters at in-person events, and for those who weren’t able to attend, they were able to submit their stories through the online microblog, Tumblr. The posters detailed the impact that their experiences had on them, often listing the number of individuals, including family members, friends, law enforcement, counselors, and others who the survivor had disclosed to and the injustices that they still faced. The number of submissions grew quickly; to date, there are over 600 submissions from survivors around the globe. With almost no publicity, submissions continue to pour in weekly, now onto the campaign’s website www.survivinginnumbers.org.

When professionals who had worked with survivors first heard about Surviving the Numbers, their immediate concern was that the posters would be too triggering to share in a public forum without adequate emotional support on the website or otherwise. This, however, turned out not to be the case. After having presented at dozens of schools and universities, along with the US Consulate in China, the Massachusetts State House, and 3 military bases including one in Qatar, the responses by survivors has been overwhelmingly positive. Many reported that the campaign allowed them to “feel ready to tell someone in [their] life”; that it was the first time they really felt safe to talk about being in an abusive relationship or share the experience publicly. One survivor said that creating a poster helped them to feel like they could literally “exhale [their] trauma.”

Rather than being further traumatized, the online poster campaign empowered survivors to comfortably and safely connect within an anonymous community. There, they not only heard the experiences of others, thus reducing isolation, but were also able to share their experiences among a community without fear of stigma and shame.

The success of Surviving In Numbers has demonstrated how an intentional online community, coupled with anonymity, can offer a promising method by which social media and technology can be used to reach and provide community to survivors in a way that had previously been thought to too risky, and potentially harmful. For many years, feminists around the globe have been using anonymity as a way to mobilize and engage as activists. Online support systems and communities like Surviving In Numbers are the natural next step in reaching and supporting survivors of violence online. The anonymity that the website provides has allowed for survivors to share as a collective and united group, which also provides for more safety. Safety is a key component of having an accessible and feminist internet, which can only exist through resistance of and response to violence online and offline. Having this collective of stories of survivors is an active force of resistance, and helps to shape the discourse around what violence looks like in a way that is informed by those who have survived it.

Surviving In Numbers is now aiming to take the campaign a step further, and will be soon launching their newest chapter: Project Thrive, a multimedia campaign that will showcase the stories of survivors healing and thriving post abuse and violence. The impetus for the campaign emerged when founder Ali Safran was looking for a way to show the longer-term impact and narrative of the lives survivors after they experience violence, as well as the strength of survivors throughout their lives. From her experiences building Surviving In Numbers, Ali knew that survivors frequently turned to the web for support and to get a sense of what the road ahead looked like. While there were many, many stories that showcased the injustices survivors faced, there were few narratives of recovery, support, healing, and thriving.

Project Thrive is setting out to answer the question of what kind of positive impact hearing narratives of healing could have on survivors on their own journey. The evidence is clear that sharing one’s story can have a positive health impact. What impact, then, could sharing the stories of strength, resilience, and healing have on survivors early on? Beyond answering these questions, Surviving In Numbers and Project Thrive will continue to shape a feminist internet, where the stories of pain and healing are received and held by a compassionate community. These stories truly have the ability shape culture both on and off of the web.