“I believe in the saying, ‘If we have to live through it, you should have to hear it,” Evan Rachel Wood told Congress on Tuesday. Last Tuesday, Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood took a flight to Washington D.C. Being a longtime fan of hers, I was happy to pass the Capitol on my morning walk […]
Because it’s an invisible disorder, it’s often misunderstood. Imagine living the worst moment of your life over and over again. I feel my stomach drop. My body starts shaking; and all of a sudden, I just can’t calm down. I’m finding it hard to breathe; my hands start clenching and unclenching uncontrollably. Inside my chest, […]
If there were no visible scars, no witnesses, couldn’t I just leave it behind? Content warning: rape It happened 14 years ago, five years before my husband and I met, far away from where we live and I’m no longer in touch with anyone from that time period. Most of my friends, ex-boyfriends, and family members […]
Trump isn’t the other, as Obama suggested in her speech today. Trump is the man who catcalls us as we hurry to work in the rain, with our heads down trying to avoid notice, and he is the man who brushes up against us in the elevator, ever so subtly, yet ever so purposefully. Speaking […]
Once again, it seems, the narrative of Straight White Women as Eternal Victims reigns supreme. Like so many feminists this past weekend, I watched the Netflix debut of the documentary Audrie and Daisy with high hopes for a powerful, must-see story of how social media bullying so often acts as a destructive force against teenage […]
The only real solution to the insidious problem of rape injustice starts and ends with our culture. I cannot say that you should never report being sexually assaulted. That is a personal decision, and a choice that I don’t think should be taken away from you. Ever. But if you look at the likelihood of getting justice, at […]
People don’t have to be scarred for life—or scarred at all—for bodily violations to be morally wrong or assailants to be held accountable. As a mother of two daughters, and as a psychologist who has experienced sexual assault, I find myself troubled by some of the language that feminist women (like me) and progressive allies […]
Our justice system conducts the trial of Owen Labrie and other alleged attackers under the auspice of “innocent until proven guilty.” However, victims are not given the same even-handed treatment. This week in New Hampshire, the boarding school culture is under intense scrutiny in the rape trial of Owen Labrie, a 19-year-old accused of raping […]
One of the most important things I have learned is that rapists rarely act the part when they are not raping. Dear Dr. Camille Cosby, Forgive me the presumption of addressing you directly. If you do not mind, I would like to address you as Dr. Cosby. You earned your doctorate when you could have […]
Many of the objections to “Yes Means Yes” come down to a discomfort with one thing: shifting the onus from survivors of sexual assault, mainly women, to perpetrators, mainly men. Last month, California passed a new law requiring state schools to use a “yes means yes” standard during campus sexual assault adjudication processes. Other states are following suit. […]
People who have not survived this damage don’t understand the violation. I clicked on his picture, and of course it was him. The same eyes. Same goatee. He is in a relationship. He has two children. At first, I got sick and then the tears came. I wasn’t panicked or scared like I used to […]
The new California ‘Yes Means Yes’ law is certainly progress, but it’s not the complete answer. True story: It was very late, and my friend’s cologne and pheromones had started to swirl together into a delicious chemical man-smell, setting my head spinning. He was one of the most attractive men I knew, and I’d been noticing […]
