#metoo is not political but societal
I was driving home from an ice hockey game with my ex-husband today. Our son had fallen asleep in the car and his wife and son had stayed home. We get along fantastically now that we’re divorced, but getting here was quite a challenge. For the record, his wife is great, too. Anyway, he brought up the #metoo movement and how the woman on the stand in the Kavanaugh case was really trashed by others after making her allegations and during the televised hearings. I’m still scratching my head as to how this turned into a political issue as opposed to a societal issue. Regardless, my ex-husband looked in the rear view mirror at me and he said, “don’t you still see the people sometimes?” He knows that at 16 years old I was at a hotel party with co-workers on New Year’s Eve in 1999 and that I was set up by two out of the five men to have *** with me. I was a ***. I consider myself lucky because only two men assaulted me despite them inviting other men to join in-I heard later that they declined participating. The two men were engaged to two of my female coworkers at the time. I had convinced my mother that this party would be OK because it was with people that we trusted, with people that we worked with, despite her reluctance. I still remember what I was wearing. This was the first time that I had gotten intoxicated that I can recall. I worked as a dietary aide in Philadelphia and told the cook what had happened my first shift back at work. Within a few days, I was confronted by other coworkers, including the fiancés of the two men who committed the assault. The men were 23 and 24 years old. The women said that I had made it up for attention. They said that I would’ve bled if I had really been a *. They said that it was my fault because I wanted to get *** ‘over with’ like we had talked about during smoke breaks. One of the women took me to confront one of the men on his porch and when I told him what had he had done to me he said that I had dreamt it. I was bullied from that job. My mom asked if I wanted to press charges and I said no. A short time later, people at my high school found out what had happened. I entered the cafeteria to them chanting “two in one”. My best friend’s boyfriend, who was a year older than us, called me a *** every time he saw me in the hallway-only he didn’t do it just for me to hear, he did it for everyone else to hear, as well. When it started, I didn’t initially know that he was talking about me, but everyone else did. Unlike many men and women out there, my ex-husband understands the repercussions of such circumstances because it affected his ability to connect with me and my ability to connect with him. While many of the #metoo movement spectators can make judgments and dismiss the trauma by saying it occurred so many years ago, unfortunately this is not how it is for the victim. That first ****** experience changed the way I felt about myself, how I felt about other women and how I thought about men. It also changed how I viewed . When he said that I still see them sometimes, he was referring to the women who didn’t believe me. Delaware County is a small area. I have seen the women in passing at the Wawa and I have no idea if they know who I am, but I cower in an aisle until they’ve left the building and until I feel safe. After all these years, I’m still embarrassed, and still dealing with the shame that such an incident left me with nearly 20 years ago. The part that still gets to me was that I couldn’t recall if I said no or just laid there as they took turns. I wanted to share this because there is so much focus on the perpetrators. But what about the women? What about the women that I worked with who had known me for one to two years before the incident and didn’t believe me? What about my best friend in high school who never stuck up for me when her boyfriend would call her best friend a ‘**’ in the hallways? There came a point when I just had to accept that I had two men in one evening by MY choice because no one believed otherwise. If those girls had believed me and not passed judgment, would I have pressed charges and been able to come forward at that time? I sit here nearly 20 years later from that night and I still hate New Year’s eve. I have a hard time trusting people. I have a hard time building friendships with women. And I have a hard time loving myself. This movement is not just about the men who committed these crimes or the victims who withstand the abuse. What about those that just standby and watch? If you are against the movement and feel that these women are lying-and some of them may be, that is not for me to decide-I want you to think about the contributing factors as to why women have not come forward until now. Most importantly, I want people to understand that this is not a movement about men or women as perpetrators, but also about society. And as you sit there and judge the strong people coming forward confronting their trauma, I want you to envision if it was your daughter, or your niece, or your wife. This #metoo movement is really about all of us.
Stephanie Mc
shared this idea
