Dominque Lamb was not raised to make her voice heard. In fact, she was taught that what goes on behind closed doors stays there.
But these days the George Mason University alumna, MA Philosophy ’10, makes a practice of speaking out for herself and countless others. She’ll do just that when she appears at George Mason’s third Annual Fear 2 Freedom event Tuesday, Sept. 20.
Fear 2 Freedom is a global nonprofit dedicated to redeeming and restoring the lives of those affected by sexual assault. This event is hosted by Mason’s LEAD Office, Women and Gender Studies, Disability Services, and the Student Support and Advocacy Center. During the event, students, faculty and staff will assemble Fear 2 Freedom backpacks, filling them with supplies for children and adults impacted by rape, abuse, domestic violence and sex-trafficking.
Lamb’s journey from her own childhood, which was marred by abuse and violence, to a life committed to education, self-awareness and violence prevention is chronicled in her new book, “What Happens in This House,” which will be released next month.
Her Fear 2 Freedom presentation, she said, will focus on “how rape and sexual assault fits into the overall interpersonal abuse picture. My book is about the silence and the extra layer of shame and embarrassment of having to keep things secret.”
Lamb works at the Office of Financial Research for the U.S. Treasury Department, but says her real passion lies on the path she stumbled across at Mason. As a graduate student, she was accepted for an internship into the Red Flag Campaign with the Arlington, Va.-based organization Doorways for Women and Families. The campaign took her into area schools to talk about how to spot the signs of unhealthy relationships. She was then invited to work at Saving Promise, an organization dedicated to intimate partner violence prevention, where she stayed a year and a half after graduating.
“When I was working for those two organizations, all the money and ideas were devoted to reacting and educating people about the signs of abuse,” Lamb said. “And that’s useful, but it doesn’t help in terms of preventing that from happening in the first place.”
Lamb wants to encourage a proactive stance against violence, through her book and through legislation she’s working on to craft a healthy-relationship curriculum for schools that will educate children about violence prevention at an early age.
“We can pretty clearly define what are the wrong things to do,” she said. “But we also need to give clarity on what should be done—here’s how a date should go, here’s how the decision to have sex should go, here’s what it means to be respectful. It’s more important to say here is the model for what you should do, even if it’s a nebulous one that should be customized for each relationship.”
Fear 2 Freedom will take place from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Johnson Center’s Dewberry Hall on the Fairfax Campus.