More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Dear Cassie Ventura,
Millions who do not have the celebrity, resources or platform to speak out are exceptionally grateful for your voice, and the voice of all the courageous women who literally take the stand.
The millions of women who have experienced rape and sexual assault are grateful at a time when resources for them are in danger of elimination.
“It’s just domestic violence.”
“They did not have a good relationship.”
If I had a dime for every utterance of those repulsive, dismissive sentiments from TV pundits and legal experts about the details in the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial in New York, I would donate it to the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, to reinvigorate paused funding.
That is because the cultural affinity for survivor diminishment as demonstrated in this case is aligned to the White House administration’s latest reduction of monetary, social, healthcare, housing and legal support for those experiencing domestic violence.
For female-identifying whistleblowers like Frances Haugen, Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford, pulling back the curtain does not always change the script of the play.
More women are refusing to stay silently embalmed in shame for what has happened to them personally and professionally, while many men are declaring they are immune to feeling shame about their own acts.
A momentous storm recently ravaged the Midwest knocking out power in my Chicago suburban neighborhood—including my home.
The status of women in the political sphere, workplace and culture in this country can be framed as a tale of power too—power won, lost and yet to be attained.