With the #MeToo movement dominating the headlines over the past few months, many of us have had to ask tough questions about our own experiences of gender, power, and relationships. While women have taken the forefront of the movement, it’s also been a moment of reckoning for men. The movement has not only provided an…
Category: Sexual violence
Having Healthy Sex after Sexual Assault
The summer I was nineteen, I researched and wrote a travel guide to Italy, journeying from Venice to the Cinque Terre armed only with a sundress and my handy dandy Macbook. It sounds pretty ideal, and it was—except for the constant, terrifying, enraging sexual harassment. From being groped on the train to being kissed non-consensually…
Sexual Harassment Starts in School, and Boy Do We Know it
You can read the original piece at Feministing I was horny in high school. Like many adolescent humans, sex ricocheted through my body like a summer storm. If you’ve read any of my writing, however, you will not be even remotely surprised to know that my outspoken feminism and ability to scan Shakespearean meter did…
How Much Effort Do Women Put Into Coping With Sexual Harassment in a Day?
Find the original article at Talkspace. It’s that knot of anxiety in the pit of your stomach when you walk down the street. You step off the train, your bag in front of your breasts, flinching lest the next passerby brush you “accidentally-on-purpose.” It’s never knowing whether your boss is leaning just a little too close. It’s…
Why Doesn’t My Friend Leave Their Abusive Partner – and How Can I Help?
Find the original piece at Talkspace. You may see your friend crying, hear your friend’s partner make demeaning comments towards them, or notice they seem anxious around or afraid of their partner. Or your friend may open up to you on their own. Knowing or suspecting that someone you care about is in an abusive…
Street Harassment and its Effect on Women’s Mental Health in Teen Vogue
You can find this piece in Teen Vogue and the original at Talkspace. I remember what I was wearing: A blue tank top with a picture of a peacock, jean short-shorts, and flip-flops. I remember the weather: High summer, sweet grass scenting the air and the sun just beginning its slow descent to the horizon….
Here’s How Street Harassment Affects Women’s Mental Health—And How We Heal
Read the full article at the Talkspace blog. I remember what I was wearing: A blue tank top with a picture of a peacock, jean short-shorts, and flip-flops. I remember the weather: High summer, sweet grass scenting the air and the sun just beginning its slow descent to the horizon. I was walking down a…
We need to confront gendered violence in movement spaces.
Read the original article at Feministing. It’s easy to talk about gendered violence from conservative men because, well, their ideology is often consistent with their douchebaggery. When you’ve devoted your entire career to ranting against abortion rights on television or groping your way to a white-supremacist presidency, there’s a pretty clear and obvious connection between your stated values (sexist)…
What Does it Mean to Break Silence?
Read the original article at Feministing. After the Trump — and the Cosby — and the Weinstein — and the Toback — revelations, we heard the same question asked over and over again: How can everyone know that sexual harassment and assault are happening, and still not admit that it is happening? Why are sexual assault and harassment so often “open secrets”? When we say that rape culture is a…
Pink’s Right. Sometimes You Just Want To Clock a Man With a Beer Bottle
Find the original article at The Ladies Finger. Sometimes, you just want to clock a man on the head with a beer bottle. This, at least, is the lesson I draw from Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s Pink. And boy, is it true. The past few weeks have been one of those times. It’s the beginning of cooler…
