Alright folks, we're going to talk about something that matters. Something that is so important to me and should be important to you. I realize I have only a very small following but all 10 (okay, I'm definitely overestimating right there) of you who read this blog probably have friends so I want you to pass this along wherever you can. Read this please. Read it and absorb it and if you can let Sady know you're standing with her because she really needs to know that right now. I don't care what you think about Julian Assange, I don't care if you think he raped those two women or if you think he is the God of the internet. This is so not about him. This is about the victims of rape who are afraid to speak out, who are silenced by the media or by her peers or by the culture that says she's a slut or stupid or should have known better. This is about the women who are afraid that it is his word against hers and hers will never be important. This is about the women who are told it wasn't rape because they didn't know their attacker or because they did or because they were attacked and continued to sleep with their attacker or because they refused to break down and be victims or because they had never had sex before or because they had had a lot of sex before. This is about telling the rape survivors out there that their words, their stories, their lives are important.
Whether you know it or not you are probably the friend, brother, sister, mother, father, cousin, aunt, uncle, lover of someone who has survived sexual assault. Think about that. Think about all the women (and yes, men...because men can be raped too) you know and realize that at least one of them (maybe more...probably more) has been sexually assaulted and maybe you knew that already but maybe she's buried it deep inside and she lets it hurt her and maybe it's eating her alive and she doesn't feel like she can say anything about it because someone will tell her it isn't rape, will call her names, will shame her until she can't testify, until she can barely hold herself up. It's not okay to push rape to the side. It's not okay to forget that these women who find the strength to point the finger at their rapist are real women who are trying to do what's best for them, they are trying to survive something awful that has happened to them. These are women who should be protected by the media, whose identities should be kept private because it simply isn't safe for them to be made public, whose stories should not be questioned and ridiculed because that sends the message that no woman has the right to speak out against her rapist (especially if that rapist is a powerful man). It is important to let every survivor know that she matters, she is important, she cannot be pushed aside.
Look, I know I don't have the way with words that Sady Doyle over at Tiger Beatdown does. She says it so much better than I do. But maybe you don't know she exists. Maybe you don't think about how important this is. But it is important. So I'm urging you to help her out in this quest. Support her on her blog, support #MooreandMe on Twitter, and most importantly support her by doing what she's asking of us. Find a rape crisis center on your college campus, in your town, in your state and donate. Donate your time, donate your money, donate in any way you can because that's how you can tell these women that they matter, that they are important, that their stories matter and their safety matters, that their cases matter and getting justice for them matters. Do this so that rape culture isn't a thing, so that women don't kill themselves because they couldn't report their rapes, so that the next time you meet a girl who has survived assault you will know that in some small way you took a step to make her life a little bit better. Just...send out your support. Pass this on. Tell everyone you know. Spread this across the country, across the world. Because these women matter. They just do. You matter.
-The Dormouse
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