April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

By Frank DiCocco
Guest blogger

April Is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

As some of you may know, the month of April is officially designated as “Sexual Assault Awareness Month.”  If you know me, then you know that I feel very passionate about this subject, and that much of my work with young men (through coaching, writing, etc.) centers on dealing with the issue of mistreatment of women. The painful statistics at this point in our nation, are that 1-in-6 women will become the victim of assault in her lifetime.  1 in 6. 

I know 6 women.  I have 6 important women in my life.

I’m pretty sure that every man in this world knows 6 women,

and has 6 important women in his life, as well.

As a gender, as a nation, as a society, and as a culture… collectively, each of us and all of us needs to WAKE UP.  We need to raise-up our own level of awareness, so that we can then raise-up the quality of life of those around us (and truly, for ourselves as well.)  We need to wish for change, but much more importantly, we need to begin to work to make change happen.

We need to start by raising our awareness to the issue…

       But then we need to reach-out our hands and do something about it.

We need to start by raising-up our consciousness to the circumstances and problems…

       But then we need to roll-up our sleeves and get working to help make things better.

We need to start by changing the way we think about violence…

       But then we need to change the ways that we promote and tolerate violence in our society.

We need to change our attitudes toward and about women…

       But then we need to make sure we are doing our part to educate and inform others to the  

       proper ways in which to speak to, speak about, interact with, and act toward women.