“Even when she was believed, nothing he did to her mattered as much as what would be done to him if his actions against her were taken seriously. His value outweighed her sexualized worthlessness.”— Catharine A Mackinnon, nytimes.com
“Men shame women for having a lot of consensual sex more than they shame other men for rape.”— kenz Ⓥ , twitter.com
“There’s lots of online information about sexual violence, but there’s not a lot of information about how you as an individual can start dealing with the trauma.”— Tarana Burke, glamour.com
“I thought, "Oh my god. This is mass disclosure across the internet and there’s no after care. Who’s going to have the discussion of what #metoo is really about?”— Tarana Burke, glamour.com
“Inherently, having privilege isn’t bad, but it’s how you use it, and you have to use it in service of other people.”— Tarana Burke, theguardian.com
“I cannot define how you or your body responds to things. I can’t tell you that’s not trauma.”— Tarana Burke, theguardian.com
“There’s sexual harassment over here and you shouldn’t conflate it with rape. Which is true; those are two very different things. But they’re on the same spectrum. Sexual harassment is like the gateway drug. It’s the entry point.”— Tarana Burke, theguardian.com
“Me Too, in a lot of ways, is about agency. It’s not about giving up your agency, it’s about claiming it.”— Tarana Burke, theguardian.com
“What does justice look like for a survivor? It’ll mean different things to different communities.”— Tarana Burke, thenation.com
“What about the person whose family didn’t know until they saw it on social media? What if for a survivor social media is your self-care and you’re bombarded with all these posts? It’s really complicated.”— Tarana Burke, thenation.com
“There are a series of emotions that most survivors go through after disclosing. It starts with feeling great, like the weight on your shoulders has been lifted, and then you’re alone with your thoughts, like, “Why did I do that?” And then what about the person who gets backlash?”— Tarana Burke, thenation.com
“I don’t think that every single case of sexual harassment has to result in someone being fired; the consequences should vary. But we need a shift in culture so that every single instance of sexual harassment is investigated and dealt with.”— Tarana Burke, theguardian.com
“If we’re ever going to heal in our community, we have to heal the perpetrators and heal the survivors, or else it’s just a continuous cycle.”— Tarana Burke, thenation.com
“That’s another reason why I center black and brown girls. There are nuances in our community around sexual violence that are informed by centuries of oppression and white supremacy, but we have to confront them.”— Tarana Burke, thenation.com
“Sexual violence happens on a spectrum, and I think that accountability should happen on a spectrum as well.”— Tarana Burke, yesmagazine.org
“The gray area is really important to talk about because so many of us live in the gray area. People talk a lot about how men are confused about consent and they don’t know if they should touch this or touch that, or ask.”— Tarana Burke, yesmagazine.org
“This iteration in social media has placed a larger focus on perpetrators being called out and held accountable for their actions. But the actual Me Too movement is about supporting sexual assault survivors.”— Tarana Burke, yesmagazine.org
“I felt a sense of dread, because something that was part of my life’s work was going to be co-opted and taken from me and used for a purpose that I hadn’t originally intended.”— Tarana Burke, nytimes.com
“Why is it so hard for men to acknowledge that sexual liberation never actually freed women? That our sexuality remains bound still by so many other man-made knots that it will take a great deal more effort than the offer of a zipless fuck to untangle us?”— Holly Wood, medium.com
“Personally, it has taken me 47 years to stop calling people who are mean to you ‘in love’ with you. It took a long time because I think that as little girls we are conditioned to believe that cruelty and love somehow have a connection and that is like the sort of era that we need to evolve out of.”— Uma Thurman, nytimes.com