We Deserve Better

Nearly three years ago, I was raped.

I never told anyone. I never said it out loud until last week. I said it to my mother, who was gentle and fierce, and everything I needed her to be.

And I immediately felt like I’d done something wrong. I felt like it was my fault that my consent had been diminished and my body had been wrenched from me.

I didn’t. And it wasn’t.

I’ve spent the past three years actively suppressing my memory of waking up alone, naked, legs spread apart, shivering, makeup smudged, covered in bruises, harrowed, next to a used condom.

I think I felt like, if I didn’t say it out loud, the extent of this deep betrayal against my whole self would be bearable. Maybe, if I didn’t say it out loud, it would be as if the bruises on my forearms and thighs had never been there, and I hadn’t been raped by someone I knew and considered a friend. If I didn’t say it out loud, I wouldn’t have to acknowledge that what I’d been so afraid of happening my entire life had actually happened to me.

In reality, the underpinning of all of this was a previously unfelt, inconsolable level of fear. I was afraid I wouldn’t be believed. I was afraid I’d be assigned fault. I was afraid I’d be shamed. I was afraid my entire identity would be reduced to this violent, grotesque violation of my body.

I’ve had two panic attacks in the last 12 years. The first occurred the morning after I was raped, and the second happened around 5 AM on November 9th.

The outcome of the presidential election has forced me to confront what happened to me. It’s forced me to grieve.

On election night around 8:30 PM, when it was abundantly clear things were going sideways, I started falling apart. After delivering a series of breathless, semi-lucid tirades to my colleagues about what states Hillary Clinton would have to pick up to salvage this thing (I had no idea what I was talking about), and how unlikely that was, I walked out of my office, out into the cold, and started bracing myself. Later, after spending several hours at an inaptly named election night watch party, then crying with complete strangers on the stoop of a house occupied by a few people I love, I made it home.

I don’t think I’ve got the words to explain the state I was in when I got home. But, whatever it was, it can probably be charitably described as an emotional train wreck, or some sort of paragon of alcohol-soaked numbness and brokenness.

I turned on my shower and got the water as hot as I could, then I got in, laid down, cried so hard it’s a miracle I haven’t been evicted, and fell asleep. I woke up two hours later, disoriented, the water running cold, and got out. I climbed into bed. Then I didn’t move for about 12 hours.

The next four days went like that.

It’s taken me a few weeks to understand why this election felt as profoundly bad as it did — not just on election night, but the entire time.

And I realized that — in addition to the horror of witnessing a candidate ascend to the most powerful political office in the world while advocating for mass deportations, blanket bans on Muslim immigrants, the construction of a physical wall along a nearly 2,000-mile long border, stop-and-frisk as sound national policy, generalizing Hispanic immigrants as rapists and criminals, shaming a Muslim gold star family, claiming that Judge Gonzalo Curiel doesn’t have the ability to be impartial because of his Mexican ancestry, who treats racial groups as monoliths, and who questioned where President Obama, our nation’s first Black president, was born — in addition to all of these repugnant things, I’ve been personally reliving being assaulted over and over again.

It’s been like a relentless and brutal echo trying to force its way to the front of my mind.

I felt that echo when I watched the video of President-elect Trump saying, “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

I felt it when he said women who seek an abortion should be subject to some form of punishment. When he called women fat pigs, slobs, dogs, and Miss Piggy, and when he said, “I’d look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers and say, ‘Rosie, you’re fired.’” I felt it when, referring to Carly Fiorina, he said, “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?” When he called his daughter a piece of ass. When he tweeted, “26,000 unreported sexual assults [sic] in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?” When he rated women based on their physical attractiveness.

I felt it when, not one, but 15 women came forward and accused President-elect Trump of sexually assaulting, harassing, and groping them. And when, in response to those accusations, he insinuated that they weren’t physically attractive enough to assault.

That echo was there when he kept Roger Ailes by his side as an advisor, even though at least 20 women have accused him of sexual assault.

It was there when he elevated Steve Bannon, whose ex-wife accused him of abusing her, who referred to educated women as a “bunch of dykes” (which is offensive to both women and queer people, for those of you keeping score at home), and who referred to a co-worker as a “bimbo” and threatened to “kick her ass.” It was there when Bannon’s white nationalist website Breitbart News published these headlines:

• “There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women in Tech, They Just Suck at Interviews”
• “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy”
• “The Solution to Online ‘Harassment’ is Simple: Women Should Log Off”
• “Sympathy for the Devils: The Plot Against Roger Ailes — and America”
• “Gabby Giffords: The Gun Control Movement’s Human Shield”

That echo was there when President-elect Trump said, “No one has more respect for women than I do.”

And just enough people decided — in a moment of all-consuming perceived self-interest — that this is acceptable.

To the people who endorsed President-elect Trump even though you disagree with him: Your cowardice is historic.

To the people who temporarily or permanently abandoned President-elect Trump after the “Access Hollywood” video came out: It was too little too late, and your selfish, myopic fear of losing the support of white suburban women isn’t commendable.

To the people who voted for him — including and especially 53% of my fellow white women — you have emboldened and enabled a predator, a sickeningly misogynistic, racist, unqualified, uncompassionate, and dangerous man who is systematically dismantling faith in democratic institutions — elections, government, free press, and peaceful protest — while building an administration from the ground up that will seek to erase and antagonize women.

This election was about a lot of things.

It was about sexism. President-elect Trump has preyed on women. He has assigned value to women based on their appearance. He has made a fortune off of the exploitation of women (see: Trump Model Management, Miss Universe Pageant, the Apprentice, etc.). And he has surrounded himself with men who have done the same.

It was about white supremacy. You can identify a cyclical trend in the electorate favoring an outsider candidate six ways to Sunday, but it’s reductive at the point that it’s mutually exclusive. White working class voters going for President Obama four years ago and President-elect Trump this year doesn’t erase that this election was about white supremacy — not when, this year, the winning candidate’s campaign was predicated on racial animus.

It was about fear. President-elect Trump is reaping ultimate political and personal gain off of otherizing and marginalizing people of color, immigrants, disabled people, queer people, and women.

But this election wasn’t about partisanship.

In fact, elections never are. Elections are about us and they’re a reflection of who we are and what we value. And our better angels lost this one. Misguided self-preservation above all else, conscious and subconscious racial bias and misogyny, and misdirected anger won out.

I’ve spent a lot of time anxious and afraid of naming and owning my lived experience.

But I have no interest in feeling that way anymore.

I was raped. I deserve better.

Our country has elected a president who has advocated for sexual assault and been accused by multiple women of sexual assault. Those women deserve better.

To every woman who has been raped, assaulted, groped, catcalled, touched in any way without consent, leered at, afraid to walk home alone, made to feel lesser than because of your gender: You deserve better.

And now I’m going to register voters. I’m going to try to raise an obscene amount of money to support the people who are on the ground organizing to make our communities safer, more inclusive, more just, and equal. I’m going to make calls and knock on doors. I’ll work every day to overcome my personal fear and anxiety, and to name my lived experience, as well as my privilege. I’m going to dedicate my life to shaping our communities and our democracy into spaces that don’t tear people down and take aim at them.

We deserve better.