Posts tagged “rape culture”

Your Disbelief Doesn’t Eliminate My Reality

Posted on September 23, 2018

Would you mind if we spent a little time here on context? I ask because just yesterday I bumped into someone and I watched it take a minute for her to place me. When it registered she smiled and blurted, “Amanda” triumphantly. We both laughed, there were no hurt feelings or judgment. “Context matters,” I said. It can be pretty easy to assume that everyone has the same perspective or familiarity with something—whether something is a person, an event, or an experience. Over the past several years there have been attempts to contextualize people’s perspectives on pain: Trigger warnings, #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo. These hashtags and qualifiers are an effort to bring to the surface the pain or obstacles that people have and to honor them.…

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Categories: Roar

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The Price of #MeToo (Trigger warning)

Posted on October 17, 2017

I’ve never liked the secret FB meme approach to advocacy. Susan Niebur taught me that the playful nature of standing up for breast cancer was, in fact, a big drag on those battling it. Posting the color of your bra with no explanation is confounding for some, but worse, for the women who no longer have breasts or who don’t shop in a sea of blush colored lace it’s almost mean-spirited. Usually, I just ignored the private message invites and then moved along.    When #MeToo started* I was torn. I began seeing the stark updates:     #MeToo     I nodded my head, remembering the texts and DMs over the years from many of these women. We’d shared the weight of the Cosby story and…

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Categories: Random

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Our Bodies Aren’t Coatracks for Your Guilt

Posted on October 14, 2017

“Be careful with that neck, it’s dangerous. Men can’t resist a neck like that.” I was 18 and his name was Jesús. I was an exchange student in Spain and had never met him before. He was ten years my senior.   Already I was so conditioned to believe that attention from men was a success—I am good enough —that I struggled to find balance between the programmed response and the way my hair stood on end on the back of my neck. I felt danger. It had only been about a year since a man had raped me in the front seat of his car. The whole time he spoke to me like I’d asked for it, like I was enjoying it. Powerful…

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Categories: Random

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Outgrowing the Chorus Room

Posted on September 17, 2017

Did you read Amber Tamblyn’s tweets a few days ago or follow any other coverage about her interaction with James Woods? Did you read her op-ed, “I’m Done with Not Being Believed” in the New York Times? I don’t think it’s necessary that you do in order to follow what I’m saying , but I thought I’d offer it up as the reason for finally coming back to this space. I believe that when and how we can, we ought to acknowledge the people who make us think, feel, and act. The other day a woman I met at Mom2 posted something on Facebook that stayed with me. I reached out to her because her words and her fight moved me. Her name is Natasha and…

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Categories: Random

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Country, Not Candidates.

Posted on November 4, 2016

This morning I woke up to read the story about Harvard immediately canceling the remainder of the men’s soccer team season as the result of a revelation of ongoing sexual harassment. It is a bold and unequivocal move, penalizing some who may not have participated. Or did they? Is not speaking up complicity? Was it only the soccer team or is it more prevalent as one female soccer player said? This behavior is unfortunately new, what is new is the effort to address. I have been grateful for Kirsten Gillibrand here in New York who has worked on how sexual assaults on college campuses and in the military are handled. You don’t have to look very hard to find the accounts of women who…

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Categories: Me, Roar

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