phands
Veteran Member
- Joined
 - Jan 31, 2013
 
- Messages
 - 1,976
 
- Location
 - New York, Manhattan, Upper West Side
 
- Basic Beliefs
 - Hardcore Atheist
 
Powerful stuff...
https://theconversation.com/the-unimaginable-costs-of-sexual-assault-104769
				
			But now, after Ford’s testimony in front of the Senate judiciary committee, I myself am looking for a safe “second exit” - surprisingly, from research on sexual assault that has been my focus for so long. Has my work kept some healing at bay, or has it healed more than I know? Have I incurred costs I cannot name? Each new public or private disclosure is more wrenching for me than the previous. I turn the newspaper over, the radio off. I am nauseated, no longer in the abstract realm of theory, data and statistical inference.
I have worked for nearly 30 years on naming and identifying harms to women. I’m not sure what direction I will take next. If my work has, in some way, even indirectly, contributed to the social change we are now awash in, I feel an incredible sense of accomplishment. If just one woman is spared from blame for just being in her home, for inadequately locking a faulty glass door or for creatively saving her life, I have great return on my investment.
We will never be able to estimate the true cost of sexual assault. The ways in which women – even those who flourish – arrange their lives after an assault are impossible to imagine. Two front doors – who could have imagined? We can’t measure what we can’t imagine. But we can begin to name.
https://theconversation.com/the-unimaginable-costs-of-sexual-assault-104769