SInce y'all seem to be my clearinghouse for all things political, let me tell a story. A couple of them, actually. Three, if you want to be specific.
When I was 14 I went with a family friend to visit some of her relatives out of state in a very small Southern town. One of them was a 30 year old man married to my friend's 19 year old sister. My friend and I spent a week there by ourselves. I spent the whole week trying, not always successfully, to keep the 30 year old from shoving his hand down my shirt. While I was awake, while I was asleep. Anytime no one was around. This was well before the days of cell phones and my choices were to tell my 14 year old friend or her 19 year old sister. I did neither. I still feel the horror, the shame, the embarrassment, and the powerlessness to this day. What I remember most is sleeping in my heaviest nightgown with two heavy blankets over me in the heat of the summer in the deep South in a house without A/C. That is, when I slept at all. I spent most of each night waiting for that hand.
When I was 20 I went with my boyfriend and his roommates to 6th Street on Halloweeen. I dressed as Billy Gibbons. Much drunken flirting and hilarity ensued. Somewhere in the crush, my boyfriend got separated and so his roommates and I took a cab back to his place. His roommates raped me. I was so drunk that I don't remember much about it except that I kept trying to turn over to stop them, but either I was too drunk or I was being held down. Now that I think about it, turning over probably wouldn't have done any good anyway, if you know what I mean. When I told my boyfriend about it the next day, he accused me of fucking them deliberately and kicked me out. Apparently flirting and drinking with roommates means I want to fuck them. I didn't tell anyone else. What would have been the point? There was no proof and no witnesses. "Date rape" wasn't even a concept then. Being raped meant by a stranger at gunpoint, knifepoint, or at least fistpoint.
Fast forward more decades than I care to admit. I'm a successful business owner. I'm doing better than I ever dreamed. I make obscene amounts of money and I've got an agreement in place to sell my business in 3 years for a humongous payout. I spent 2013 bald and puking and kicked cancer to the curb, never to look back. I'm a published songrwiter and I've been involved in the Austin music scene for a long time. I do volunteer work. I'm happily married, have a nice house in one of the greatest cities in the world, and by all accounts, a great life.
But this morning I feel, in turns, 14 and 20 years old. I'm being touched and violated against my will. And no one cares, no one believes me, and I'm being publicly mocked and scorned by the leader of this country and his disgusting minions. I should have said something. I should have done something. I shouldn't have drank. I shouldn't have flirted. I shouldn't have dressed up as Billy Gibbons with a fake beard and a cardboard guitar. I shouldn't have gone out of state with my friend at age 14 for a vacation from my parents. I'm nothing. My credentials don't matter, my credibility doesn't exist, and I'm just some skank trying to use something that certainly didn't happen, and, well, if it did, then it's my fault, to help the evil liberals bring down the poor persecuted conservatives.
I guarantee you I'm not the only woman you know who feels this way today. Just keep it in mind, OK?