These were observations that I made through the autumn, as the news of Harvey Weinstein brought this sexual harassment into the public consciousness again.:

When you have been through an abusive situation, you end up carrying a pack of stones around. Only one stone is the abuse itself. Another is the shame. Another the guilt, then the sense of betrayal, the second-guessing yourself, the should-have dones, the feeling that you have no right to feel this or to feel that because it really wasn’t that bad because there are worse things and other people have suffered more, the meanness that grew and spilled, the guilt about the meanness, the regret, the need to protect others, the returning every day because you have to return to the scene of the crime, the poor choices you have to keep on explaining decades later that you had to make, the loss of whatever good you thought about yourself that made you think you had no other type of choice to make, the pre-existing conditions that became chronic that made you feel weak and more ashamed, the mistrust, the misplaced trust, the lost time to every single stone in that pack. The exhaustion. You don’t notice most of the time, for decades, even; but sometimes, some asshole somewhere, along with everything that backs and surrounds and protects him, reminds you of that first stone and you feel all of that weight pressing you down. (October 13) 

Me, too. (October 16)

Too many of us, too. It is the air we breathe. It is the geography of our world. It is the script of our conversations. It is in every contingency. There are as many responses as there are women (and gay men), and none of them are right because they all have repercussions that diminish us. Sure, we endure, with that pack full of stones. Too many of us, too. (Later in the day, after nearly every single woman whom I know chimed in. October 16)

You know when you explain your experience to someone, saying “this is what it felt like, this is what I went through, this is how I saw it,” and that person responds, “no you didn’t,” and you say, “yes, I did, and I know because I’m in this body going through that experience and this is was it felt like,” but that person says, “no you didn’t” then they proceed to tell you what you felt and experienced despite your protests? What do you call that? Is there a word for it? (November 4)

Why do certain people have such a difficult time treating women like human beings? (November 14)

Came across an interesting term in reading about dark tourism: “Post-emotion,” in which a person or people are incapable of feeling empathy for those outside of their own, immediate family. I know people like that (and perhaps have been people like that at various points in my life). They are “good people” to their family and even close friends, but have a sort of siege mentality about the rest of the world. (November 14)

Al Franken is the reason many women don’t trust men. When even the guys who are supposed to be on your side amuse themselves by treating you as no more than T & A, we always have to wonder when the other shoe will drop, when we will discover the exact quality of their sheep’s clothing, when we can just breathe. (November 16)

This is what you learn, growing up as a girl: We are expendable. We have always been expendable. Useful, at times, but expendable, even to ourselves. Some of them are overt in hating us, passing laws that disempower us. Others say our concerns are a distraction, not real issues, not economic issues. Still others pass laws to protect us, to do other good things, but show their disgust in a million covert ways. They placate us, and we offer sacrifices, praying we never become the sacrifice ourselves. We are all bitches after we leave the room. Tits, ass, pussies, bleeding, weeping, reproductive organs. A sum of parts without minds. Too much and never enough. Defective by default. Never a whole person. (November 17)

After reading “A Eulogy to the Everyday Geniuses We’ve Lost to Toxic Work Culture.” From the article: “Let us instead lament a masculinized work culture so colossally blind that it devours dreams large and small, stymies talent, and holds women back, despite research clearly showing that having women in leadership leads to higher returns, lower risk, and more innovation.” In the next paragraph she quotes a woman who says something about soldiering on and having been taught that “not being able to take it” was weakness. But, these women take everything the men do, in addition to what the men dish out. That is: backwards and in high heels. Perhaps if more female genius had been allowed in along the way, the loss of these “‘great’ male artists and leaders” wouldn’t be felt so painfully. (December 8)

Does it not occur to people that, after three months in which sexual harassment and assault have been in the news every single effing day that maybe, just maybe, they should remove “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” from their holiday song rotation? It’s not even about the holidays! It is literally about a man refusing to take “no” for an answer then trying to coerce her by saying that she’s hurting his poor, manly feelings by not doing what he wants. That’s not cute. That’s textbook asshole. (December 20)

After reading “When #MeToo Goes Too Far” in the New York Times.:  Yes, Mr. Stephens, “listening is essential.” You know what listening often sounds like? You being quiet while the other person speaks. Here is a first class, epic example of Concern Troll mansplaining. In other words, what NOT to do if you are being begged by women to listen to our experience while we try to find a way to dismantle the attitudes, environments, and structures that create the spectrum on which all of these wrong behaviors exist. (December 21)