We Must Listen To Survivors Of Sexual Violence

“Why are we still demanding that women out themselves as survivors, again and again and again, rather than demanding that men out themselves as abusers?”

— Heather Jo Flores, medium.com

“I wish women didn’t have to rip our pasts open and show you everything and let you ogle our pain for you to believe us.”

— Lindy West, latimes.com

“I refuse to post this #metoo thing. Not because I haven’t been harassed and abused but because Y’ALL ALREADY KNOW that likely every woman you have ever met has dealt with this crap. It shouldn’t take some hashtag to remind you. It shouldn’t fall to the victims, again, to have to keep speaking out. I…”

— Heather Jo Flores, medium.com

“we live in a world that constantly shames us for the ways we have come to survive, for our coping strategies, for the ways we have been bruised.”

— Alok Vaid Menon, facebook.com

“Our culture does not encourage people who cause harm to take responsibility. We have an adversarial model where the person who is actually placed on trial is the survivor.”

— Mariame Kaba, truth-out.org

“I am sick of having to suffer so a man can grow. I am tired of having to confess to someone else’s crimes.”

— Alexandra Petri, washingtonpost.com

“The only thing that shocked most people in the film industry about the Harvey Weinstein story was that suddenly, for some reason, people seemed to care.”

— Sarah Polley, nytimes.com

“I wish I had known that there were women in the business I could have talked to. I wish I had known that there were ears to hear me. That justice could be served. There is clearly power in numbers.”

— Lupita Nyong'o, msn.com

“Isn’t it sad that when a girl says she was sexually assaulted, our first instinct is to think she’s probably lying? Statistics and facts tell us the exact opposite. We demand ‘perfect victims’ who better not have been drinking or hanging out at a party in a short skirt or revealing dress or have eve…”

— Amy Schumer, amazon.com

“This is not a story of another drunk college hook­up with poor decision making. Assault is not an accident.”

— Anonymous, buzzfeed.com

“But I don’t remember, so how do I prove I didn’t like it.”

— Anonymous (transcribed by Katie J.M. Baker), buzzfeed.com

“when Judy Garland told people about how studio heads had been abusing her since she was a child, everybody called her crazy. they still do.”

— The Mountain Goats, twitter.com

“What you don't seem to understand about women in general is that we feel unsafe all the time. At class, at parties, job interviews, getting into an elevator, parking our cars, walking down the street at night... I don't need you to push me out of my comfort zone when I've never been inside one.”

— Sarah Treem, Audrey, Sarah Ramos, imdb.com

“Terry Crews, an African American actor, tweeted his degrading experience with an Hollywood exec in front of his wife. Crews wanted to react and defend himself against the harassment however due to unfair, racial biases he was afraid of getting painted as the ‘aggressive black man’ and jeopardizing h…”

— Amelia (Mia) Smalls, medium.com

“Emotional abuse in a relationship takes time to build. It’s slow and methodical and incessant, much like a dripping kitchen faucet.”

— Jennifer Williams-Fields, everydayfeminism.com

“After a few hours of this, they let me shower. I stood there examining my body beneath the stream of water and decided, I don’t want my body anymore. I was terrified of it, I didn’t know what had been in it, if it had been contaminated, who had touched it. I wanted to take off my body like a jacket…”

— Anonymous (transcribed by Katie J.M. Baker), buzzfeed.com

“When he comes home with pregnant knuckles, dripping blood all over the floor, I feel like a volcano of a wife. I am waiting for the tectonic plates below me to pose perfectly. I am waiting for the last straw, the last black eye or missing tooth I see before I pack my suitcase and he shows me the fro…”

— Lydia Havens, freezeraypoetry.com

“I can’t sleep alone at night without having a light on, like a five year old, because I have nightmares of being touched where I cannot wake up, I did this thing where I waited until the sun came up and I felt safe enough to sleep. For three months, I went to bed at six o’clock in the morning. I use…”

— Anonymous, mercurynews.com

“I want to show people that one night of drinking can ruin two lives. You and me. You are the cause, I am the effect. You have dragged me through this hell with you, dipped me back into that night again and again. You knocked down both our towers, I collapsed at the same time you did. Your damage was…”

— Anonymous, mercurynews.com

“I speak up to contribute to the end of the conspiracy of silence.”

— Lupita Nyong'o, msn.com

“For black women, silence is often equatable to death. We go through enough silencing, suppression and harassment over our voices day in and day out.”

— Clarkisha Kent, theroot.com

“I don't actually feel overwhelmed by survivor stories. I feel overwhelmed by inaction around survivor stories.”

— Shira Hassan, truth-out.org

“For women in America who come forward with stories of harassment, abuse and sexual assault, there are not two sides to every story, however noble that principle might seem.”

— Amber Tamblyn, mobile.nytimes.com

“Let's stop allowing our young women to be sexual cannon fodder, and let's remember that Harvey is an emblem of a system that is sick, and that we have work to do.”

— Kate Beckinsale, instagram.com

“Abuse leaves a person emotionally handicapped, unable to maintain healthy, lasting relationships without some kind of intervention.”

— Joyce Meyer, amazon.com

“People fail to understand that tragedy and silence have the exact same address.”

— Salmah Hamid, thoughtcatalog.com

“You’ve got to be courageous. Have a support system. You’ve got to lawyer up. It takes money.”

— Howard Bragman, nytimes.com

“#MeToo is not about sexual violence alone. It is about the misogyny, patriarchy and the disturbingly exorbitant numbers of women sexually assaulted because of it. Why is it that we amplify men’s voices when they are not the ones silenced. It doesn’t mean horrific things don’t happen to men and boys,…”

— Nicole Lashomb, therainbowtimesmass.com

“Why do the #NotAllMen supporters feel that every single man would have to be a rapist for there to be criticism?”

— Lea Rose Emery, bustle.com

“Men: It’s not our job to keep reminding you. Remind each other, and stop abusing. It’s as simple as that. Until men speak out against men who abuse, this will never stop. How about y’all post ‘I ignored it and I won’t anymore’ instead?”

— Heather Jo Flores, medium.com