“Deconstructed, I find its bits and pieces everywhere around me in the architecture of my social world. I find components of its violence in the sexism of your comments. I find it in the way you touch me without asking. I find it in the way you call that girl a whore. I find its bits and pieces of violence, the building blocks of sexual assault, in the psyches and vocabularies of my boyfriend, my professors, and my friends.” FeminismSexismSexual AssaultRape CultureMetooStreet HarassmentCatcalling Author:Alice Minium
“For it is the silent men, far more than the loud mouthy men on Warwick Boulevard, who make this possible. It is the silent men at 711, the silent men at the YMCA, the silent men next to us in cars, the silent men lying next to us in our bedrooms, the silent men we call our best friends, our boyfriends, and our fathers. It is the silent men, not the loud ones- who permit foulmouthed men to chew me up and spit me out as I walk down the street. It is the silent men who could have stopped this, but who didn’t care to, because they were busy. It is the silent men who said 'Yes' to violence, and who, in their complicit silence, insisted that my world would be impenetrably loud.” FeminismSexismSexual AssaultRape CultureMetooStreet HarassmentCatcalling Author:Alice Minium
“It’s one thing to deconstruct and analyze and condemn the institutions of patriarchy and their flaws. It’s another one to feel their bruises on your skin, and their grasping hands pulling your hair and covering your mouth as you scream.” FeminismRapeSexual AssaultMetooRape SurvivorsRape RecoverySexual Assault Quotes Author:Alice Minium
“The worst part is that I want to turn this into a parable. I want to echo a rallying cry of inspiration that sings, Women, we are not alone; Women, these men do not defeat us; Women, these men do not define us; Women, I feel what you feel; Women, we, together, are strong, and for all the loud voices that said no or that didn’t have the freedom to but who still said 'please stop' or 'not right now' or 'I don’t know' or 'I don’t like that' which are all the same goddamn thing, to all the women who said no, you are not to blame for his hard, hungry hands, whether they came at you like raging fists or whether they gripped your face softly, at first, smiling at it and inviting you into the night, only later for you to meet the fingernails and full-weighted back of his hand to keep you there and press you down; to all the women who said no, you are not to blame; to all the women who feel ashamed, you are still the goddess and his hungry hands could not defile you more than mortals could defile a god; to all the women who feel sorry, you did not sin; to all the women who feel angry, I share your rage; to all the women who are too tired to feel rage, to all the women who feel empty, who feel blank, who feel Nothing, who feel small, I feel that most of all, too.” FeminismRapeSexual AssaultMetooRape SurvivorsRape RecoverySexual Assault Quotes Author:Alice Minium
“I want to write a thinkpiece about what you did to me. I want to write a critical analysis about the way you put your hands to my throat, the way you threw me against the partition wall. I want to extract a dose of worldly wisdom for all women to sap the power from that pain and into abstraction so we can all live again; I want what you did to be a statistic, I want you to be a memory, I don’t want you to be those hands on my throat.” FeminismRapeSexual AssaultMetooRape SurvivorsRape RecoverySexual Assault Quotes Author:Alice Minium