More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I think it helps to know that there were—and in some places in the world, still are—cultures of balance between women and men. They were not matriarchal—that is, women did not dominate—but they were matrilineal, with clan identity inherited through the mother, and the father and often the mother’s brothers playing an important role in childrearing.
That’s because violence against females normalizes domination in the first relationships we experience in life,
A normalized patriarchy still means many of us have been raised to believe that human qualities are divided into masculine and feminine, dominant and passive, and that this excuses sexual violence.
“the root of oppression is the loss of memory.” Perhaps we are remembering what once was—and could be again.
A few hours later, I ran to my dorm and pretended it never happened, that I had not been raped, and even refused to take the shower that I had seen so many fictionalized rape victims take on television.
And yet he could not move forward with the case because in 1992, the year that my assault took place, the “no means no” rape clause did not exist in Pennsylvania and rape, in legal terms, had to be accompanied by physical violence.
control of both. The proceedings against Smith turned into Patricia Bowman’s trial, too, long before court convened. Prosecution investigators questioned her over and over about her claim against Smith, a member of the prominent Kennedy clan. They asked about her illegal drug use, her mental health, even why she hadn’t paid an allergist’s bill nine years before.
Then she added, “I believe me.”
an experience doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Of the women Koss surveyed whose experiences met the legal definition of rape, 90 percent said what happened to them fit one of these descriptions: it was rape; it was some kind of crime, but they didn’t know it qualified as rape; it was sexual assault, but they didn’t know it was a crime. Only 10 percent said they did not feel victimized.
to contact me again or I would call the police. Then I slammed down the phone. I couldn’t believe it: I had confronted him and he had admitted that, yes, he had raped me.
Those figures make acquaintance rape and date rape more common than left-handedness or heart attacks or alcoholism.
For her to acknowledge her experience as rape would be to recognize the extent to which her trust was violated and her ability to control her own life destroyed.
