Terms to Know
The CARE Program provides this vocabulary in an attempt to create a consistent, shared understanding of language we use in our prevention programming. The definitions are not meant to be used as a metric in adjudication proceedings nor are they replacing legal and policy definitions. You can review UCLA’s policy definitions through the Title IX website. CARE seeks to expand the understanding of each term to provide context and depth to the unique ways we experience them based on our individual intersecting identities.
Cultural Humility: Refers to working toward, acknowledging, and understanding one’s own background and biases. This requires a constant examination of one’s biases, how they may impact others, and recognizing that it is a constant learning experience. Cultural humility acknowledges that it is impossible to be adequately knowledgeable about cultures other than their own and that it requires actively challenging stereotypes and personal biases, while understanding and acknowledging the importance of all identities and how they all play an impact on a “whole person.”
Equity: Refers to access to resources including education, healthcare, employment, and wealth with a recognition that different categories of individuals start with more access (privilege) than others. Equity, therefore, requires additional support to those who have had less access to account for the unequal starting place. This concept is generally in reference to systemic disadvantage as opposed to individual circumstance. Equity is frequently confused with equality, which suggests everyone is given the same opportunities without regard to the socially engineered disadvantages some groups start with, thus reinforcing and maintaining these disadvantages. Equitable solutions can lead to equality, but equality-based solutions cannot lead to equity.
Intersectionality: A term first coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw that stipulates we all have multi-faceted identities and we cannot separate one from another. These identities include but are not limited to race, gender, sexual orientation, ability status, socio-economic status, and religion. The women’s movement (frequently credited with awareness raising and prevention initiatives in the field of sexual and gender-based violence) has been rightly criticized for focusing on the plight of white women while ignoring and perpetuating the harms experienced by women of color. From the suffragette movement to women’s liberation, to modern feminism, all of which disregarded anti-racism in favor of women’s rights inherently made “white” race-neutral, which othered the experiences and needs of women of color in healthcare, education, politics, and employment. Intersectionality is an insistence on the recognition that the oppression of one is the oppression of us all. “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” Audre Lorde
Trauma-Informed: The core components of this framework include: safety, choice, trust, control, cultural competence, healing, and empowerment. This is a philosophy and form of service-delivery that factors an individual’s trauma history into treatment and prioritizes the many intersections of their identity and how that may impact how they approach and respond to services. This framework prioritizes the concept that survivors are the expert in their own journey and services must be centered around their unique needs. This concept stems from early rape crisis center and domestic violence movements.
Upstander Intervention (Bystander Intervention): The core components of this framework include: safety, choice, trust, control, cultural competence, healing, and empowerment. This is a philosophy and form of service-delivery that factors an individual’s trauma history into treatment and prioritizes the many intersections of their identity and how that may impact how they approach and respond to services. This framework prioritizes the concept that survivors are the expert in their own journey and services must be centered around their unique needs. This concept stems from early rape crisis center and domestic violence movements.A social science strategy that asks witnesses of problematic attitudes and behaviors to interrupt in the moment in an attempt to change the outcome of a situation. Though it can be applied to many types of behaviors, in the context of sexual and gender-based violence prevention it has been most traditionally applied to predatory behavior witnessed on the street or at a party. Rarely do these programs address the points of intervention in the development of attitudes that allow someone to enact harmful behaviors. Traditional programs have also not accounted for the varied experiences individuals have based on their identities and relative privilege. Not everyone has access to the same resources or safety mechanisms when intervening and the same consequences upon intervening. This, unsurprisingly, negatively impacts the likelihood of intervention for women of color, queer and trans folx. Upstander Intervention, therefore must insist on multidimensional interventions with respect to the individuals experiencing harm and accountability on the part of individuals causing harm.