Transcripts

PEGGY MILLER: We have done chipping away work at a massive granite block.

JIM RAGSDALE: That is the way Peggy Miller sees her job. She is the assistant director of sexual offense services of Ramsey County, an agency which helps the victims of sexual violence.

PEGGY MILLER: And we've begun to make an impact, yeah. I think that we've begun to make a community that's safer. We've begun to identify those people who have raped as criminals and not just lucky men. That we've begun to provide treatment programs for those guys.

So on my good days, I'd say, yeah, I think we have effected some change, but when I'm more realistic about it, I'd say that the change has been just minimal compared to the monumental work that we have ahead of us.

JIM RAGSDALE: Miller and the women gathered for the conference in Minneapolis can point to some accomplishments. Rape and other forms of sexual violence are no longer taboo subjects for public discussion. There are programs in most areas to help victims cope with the trauma of the assault and with its legal aftermath.

And laws in many states have been changed to make it slightly less traumatic for a woman to identify her attacker. But from her perspective, Peggy Miller sees many attitudes and ideas which have not changed.

PEGGY MILLER: There is still the element of only bad girls are raped, or, what did you do to deserve this? Or if only you hadn't been gone-- if only you'd locked the door, if you'd pushed the piano in front of the door before you went to bed, this would have never happened, in the wrong place at the wrong time kind of thinking.

On a very gut level, I think that still exists. It's going to take years. It took years to get there, and it's going to take years to change that.

JIM RAGSDALE: The meeting of the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault seems aimed at these social attitudes as much as it is at law and policy. The more than 500 people attending the meeting at the Sheraton Ritz in Minneapolis work in rape crisis centers and other agencies dealing with the victims of sexual assault.

Among the dozens of workshops this week include programs on the status of state laws concerning marital rape, ways to treat sexually aggressive people, and how to help rape victims cope with fear. The question of social attitudes is an important one to these sexual violence workers. Peggy Miller sees the attitudes which tend to divide us, including sexism, racism, and the fear of homosexuality, as related to the amount of sexual violence in the country.

PEGGY MILLER: That when we can begin to see other people as other, that it's very easy for us to perpetrate violence against them. We don't take them as seriously. We see them in a one-down position and feel more powerful than they.

JIM RAGSDALE: Those attending the Conference of the National Coalition Against Sexual Violence heard the group's outgoing president, Sharon Sayles of Minneapolis. She urged the group to build alliances with other organizations in order to challenge some of these social attitudes.

SHARON SAYLES: I'm concerned, and I believe that the question of what next is the issue of coalition building. The question of networking, networking with organizations such as the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Organization for Women, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I believe that it is through unity that we will realize our dream to live in a society that is free from sexual violence.

JIM RAGSDALE: Sharon Sayles, outgoing president of the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault. The meeting of the group continues through Saturday at the Sheraton Ritz. This is Jim Ragsdale reporting.