Why we need to know HowToMeToo
[Music]
in my early 20s
i spent a summer in my hometown working
at a family restaurant
out of a commuter train station on my
very first day
my manager hands me my uniform it’s a
t-shirt
that reads check out my rack
i looked around and realized that only
busty women were being asked to wear it
i didn’t know quite what to do but i did
know that i felt
humiliated i handed the t-shirt back and
said
no thank you next i reported it
i happened to be interning at the
national organization for women that
summer
and i convinced them to add the
restaurant to its boycott list
it was my first act of defiance against
sexual harassment
and it taught me an enduring lesson
i have agency i can make a difference
but as i got older i realized that
taking a stand was far more complicated
than
handing back a t-shirt and that’s
certainly true today
in the wake of me too even as
scores of men powerful men
have been brought down we still don’t
hold
people accountable who aren’t
celebrities or titans of industry
those that abuse restaurant workers and
fruit pickers
and everyday middle managers who prey on
their shift workers
my story is about one of those men
one of the everyday run-of-the-mill
abusers
who the new york times is never going to
investigate
i’m here to tell you
how we can serve justice on them
during the brett kavanaugh hearings i
watched dr christine blasey ford
and her remarkable testimony to the
senate
she had nothing to gain and everything
to lose
but she was not going to give
up she was not going to let kavanaugh
forget the horrors
that she endured that one summer night
when she was 15.
it took extraordinary courage
and i was in awe it didn’t
stop his nomination but
it did expose him for who he is
at one point in her testimony
she described kavanaugh covering his
hand over her mouth
to stop her from screaming and then
he or another friend turned up the music
so others
in the house couldn’t hear her
it triggered a memory for my own teenage
years
because the man who raped me
didn’t do that he didn’t have to
i was unconscious either from booze or
drugs in my drink no need to
clap a hand over my mouth or turn up any
music
he had free reign over my body dr ford’s
testimony
brought back a flood of memories from
nearly three
decades ago and
i remembered other things too how
excited i was
as a suburban high school senior
to go to my very first college party to
be the center of attention
there i met pete he was a few years
older than me
and he stayed close and plied me with
drinks
soon he was pawing me on the couch
and that’s the last thing i remember
i woke up hours later bloody
disheveled aching
and confused i gathered myself
best i could and i walked outside
only to see my bra hanging from a tree
i went straight home and told no one who
was i gonna tell
my parents i was too scared of my
father’s anger and
of my own shame so i
found a crawl space in my head and i
shoved it up there as far as it would go
i was so deep in denial that
when pete asked me out shortly after
i accepted i went on a date
with my rapist and i kept it
buried for years i told a few people i’d
known but
never the full story
but even before the kavanaugh’s hearings
i
wondered about pete and what i
discovered is that
he looked to have a pretty
picture-perfect life
loving wife adorable boys
and he worked as a community college
professor
surrounded by young women
dr ford’s testimony shocked me into the
realization
that i needed to take action
and in many ways this was really
familiar territory for me
i have spent my career fighting for
causes i believe in
i have exposed bad actors in the gun
industry and i have forced the
resignation
of corrupt politicians i am not
one who doesn’t demand answers or who is
easily pleased so
i wrote a letter to the college
where my rapist works i spoke to the
title ix
coordinator and i told her my story and
expressed my concern
for the women on campus she
promised me that she would she would
tell my story to the president of the
college
and he in turn promised that he would
tell it
to his board of directors they both
assured me
there would be a full investigation
but months went by
and i heard nothing
i later learned that the so-called
investigation
consisted of a single email
survey to the current students
on campus and
when it was completed the president of
the college
said there was not a whiff of
impropriety and the many
years that my rapist had been at his
school
and that he was no in no position
to pass judgment on behavior
from so long ago
i was furious i sat there staring at my
computer screen
with hot tears running down my face
but i didn’t give up i wrote to
every member of that board of directors
i wrote to the state oversight committee
on higher education
urging them to review the investigation
and launch a separate inquiry
into the actions of the president
i had a feeling and it was only a
feeling at this point
that this was more than the usual
institutional desire
to make an awkward situation go away
eventually through public records
requests
i found out that the president of the
college had been looping professor pete
into all of our conversations and that
separately
he had told his board of directors
that there was another side to the story
and
that pete was likely innocent
so much for not passing judgment
also with the help of a researcher
i learned that in a different position
at another institution that
the president of the college had
actively
recruited a star basketball player
who had been credibly accused of rape
and had been thrown out of
two separate universities
no one else would take him
and the president’s public defense of
those actions
well everybody deserves a second chance
and that’s where i am today i would love
to say that the college took
those allegations seriously
and that it protected its students but
this is painstaking frustrating work
and there are no quick fixes
and even if there were and even if
pete were in prison right now and even
if
no other women were assaulted
i would still be looking
after that damaged terrified confused
17 year old girl me
and i’ll likely be looking after her
for the rest of my life
at the same time taking action
has value and those actions
can be big or small yes
you can organize protests yes you can
press charges
but if those things seem too daunting
you
can call me or someone like me
or a local legal non-profit or a
government agency
or someone who has the capacity and the
ability
to support you and create change
the point is to do something
we all need to learn how to me too
as survivors we need to reject the
culture
of impunity and build a network
a network with the skills and resources
and experience to seek redress for all
that we have
endured
it is not enough for us to hope
and pray that a national organization
will find
our cause worthy when we
understand how to meet we take back our
agency
and seeking justice is how we win back
our voice it’s powerful
and it’s attainable for all of us
thank you
[Music]
you