Know her name

Dear Daring Readers,

Sometimes you find what you need out of the blue on a regular day in the form of a book, an article, a quote or a picture. A few weeks ago I came across something of significance that brought me to unexpected places. Places and times I imagined while listening to the voice of a person that is eloquently and candidly telling a story that brings back memories and emotions long repressed.

I’ve just finished listening to “Know my name” and have to rave about it. In this book I found so many things I know to be true about life and a window to a world I have always been afraid to fall into: the one of a victim of rape or sexual assault.

I saw Chanel Miller talking about her book on Democracy Now! (which you could by the way check out), an independent news program. She talked about being assaulted and the aftermath of what happened. I knew little about the story before I listened and somehow, because of how articulate and insightful she was, I wanted to hear more.

You might have heard about Chanel Miller in 2016 when she wrote an impact statement that went viral and got shared and read millions of times. At that time she was still known as “Emily Doe” and her case was not talked about much outside of the US, yet her brilliance and apt words made people feel heard and understood the world over. The story of Emily Doe started when she was seen by two Swedish students passed out and half naked with a guy all over her. The man attempted to run away, the Swedes checked on her, then tackled him and called the police. Her body was covered in bruises and she had hundreds of pine needles in her hair. She was not conscious at that time and could not remember what had happened later, when she opened her eyes. The man was released shortly after. She was left in the dark for weeks as to what had taken place and what her options were to look for justice. Many months later he received a very light sentence after she had gone through a trial that proved painful and traumatic.

The story is not just about her quest for justice that breaks your heart and makes you feel empowered at the same time, but also about what people go through when they are harmed and left to deal with the aftermath in a world that does not acknowledge their pain and react accordingly. A world of indifference, perpetuation of wrong ideas and power imbalances in which we all live.

I had always tried to remove stories of rape, assault and abuse from my life, since I was young I learned that the world described by the victims could be my own and needed to look away. My fear was that I would become even more afraid of the world than I already was, although my greatest fear is and has always been not being believed and suffering in silence while people who have power decide my faith.

Fear of looking at scenes of rape in movies (I usually close my eyes, sometimes I freeze though) or reading them in books had controlled my life for too long, plus she immediately occupied a special space in my heart, so I wanted to listen to her book. I wanted to feel all the emotions that I had repressed, mostly fear and anger, and I did!

Fear of not being believed, that is here to stay aside, I think this book took me on a painful healing journey I terribly needed. She opened up a world that is not often seen as most victims do not want to go public because it is safer to be anonymous. Writing the book was a painful part of her journey, which she describes as cathartic, and I know what she means. Writing can be a tool to regain control of our own story and life after having gone through something traumatic that took our power away.

Her story had me sobbing a lot and it also warmed my heart at the same time: a mix of heartbreaking details of the life of someone who has been traumatized and the celebration of the little things in life that kept her head above water. When she said that she resorted to comedy to express herself I wanted to dance around the house. Who knows…maybe I’d do that too! When she described letting her anger out during a poetry slam, once again I felt some energy run through me like a lightning. We are not powerless and motionless as victims, there is life and fun and action while feeling the pain! And there is an audience that is not afraid, who is willing to listen, eager to listen, that will certainly be there.

I saw my own despair when she talked about hers, and really wanted to hold her close. I rejoiced in the fact that she had a support system and ways to express herself, when she had the energy. Another thing that really mirrored something that I know to be true is that because her anger did not envelope the entire story and all the people in it, but was carefully directed at the people who hurt her, she appreciated the people who showed compassion, respect and kindness. In my own experience as a victim of a crime I have tried to do the same, and it has taken me years to appreciate all the strangers who helped me during a crisis and share the story publicly at a Dublin Story Slam.

Her book is about what it means to be a woman in the 21st century in the Western world. I believe that the way she was treated and judged says a lot about our world and how we live in it. In particular how the wealthy and powerful live in it. She was interrogated in a way that is truly disgusting and repulsive due to the outdated and false ideas around rape that we can’t seem to shake as a society. They made her feel guilty for drinking too much and at the same time felt that his crime was attenuated by his alcohol consumption. The victim cannot do what the perpetrator does and get away with it. He was drunk which equals less guilty and she was drunk which means that she shares the blame for what happened, according to them. Wrong. Drunk and passed out equals that she was unable to give consent.

The idea of consent is never fully explained, if at all present, in our culture, even when it is mentioned. She reports, like many others, that the first question is “Did you say no?” Giving consent means saying “yes”, yet the question is about a “no”, and I call BS. In order to say that consent was given freely, without any type of coercion, you need a clear “yes”, and this holds for anything in life. Chanel was found by witnesses unconscious, half-naked, bruised and with a lot of dirt in her hair. In court the prosecutors reported that the perpetrator thought she consented and enjoyed the interaction. Try to imagine a “pleasurable night” that ends with you being found like that, and then being asked if you said “no”, as if not saying anything could be construed as consent.

They asked her about her sexual history as if that was relevant. If you think it is then, a mugger is justified for stealing a purse if the owner gives money to charity! What you decide to do with your full consent does not matter when it comes to assault and rape which are by definition perpetrated against your will. It just does not matter how you behave sexually. Period. It really hurt me that all the things that the perpetrator did showing lack of judgement that day or before that, were never properly discussed or even brought up during the trial, because he was deemed more reliable and respectable due to his status and athletic performances. It really hurt to see that once again consent and facts did not matter because he had money, good contacts and a lot to lose.

When she talked about being catcalled and feeling threatened I felt a deep pain of acknowledgement of my own fears because it is something I have had to live with for years. Now it is not as common for me to go through that, mostly out my own avoidance. I have experienced like her my life shrinking to the size of a pea; cisgender* and transgender women know that it is hard to live life to the full and feel the fear at the same time. I have been hiding, yes, I have. Just as she did. Avoiding places, events, people to feel safe. I am afraid of what people might do to me, especially when under the influence, so I don’t go out most nights. And yes, I am not really a party animal, but fear of cisgender men has played a much bigger role in my life than I have ever acknowledged to myself and others.

I think about the times I went to events at night and checked if I was being followed, being accosted by people who wanted to offer drinks, being told that getting me drunk could be fun, and many other instances beside catcalling that made me feel objectified and reduced to a toy. I know that I wore skirts and people on the street felt the need to comment in my country of origin. I know that I didn’t feel protected or understood by the women in my life who would bitterly comment on women’s attires and deemed them too this or too that while denying that catcalling was happening or was anything serious. Cisgender women who do not stand in solidarity with cisgender and transgender women alike, and victims of sexual assault in general, really sadden me. It is considered normal to comment on people’s appearance, yet we know it is not innocuous or fun, and we can be the ones who refuse to do it starting tomorrow. Being aware of rape culture takes educating oneself and is certainly more daunting than mindlessly commenting on people’s clothes or body shape. I believe it is our duty to look after one another, not judge one another, and solidarity is key.

This book made me look at wounds that were already there and reconsider why I feel the need to go home early and behave in a way that would be considered justifiable by others. Chanel Miller says that they wanted her to be the perfect victim. I’m not a rape victim and feel that need to behave in a way that I could explain to people I know, and maybe to a jury. There are things like walking alone at night that I really love. It’s a great opportunity to think, and works like a walking meditation for me, especially when it is so dark that I feel no one can see me. This pleasure is one of the many that is denied by fear, that either interrupts or deters me. Like her I sometimes censored myself and wore a more conservative outfits or changed unusual plans for fear of having to defend my actions at a later time.

Tell me if this sounds like freedom to you.

It doesn’t to me.

My own iteration of “Look the way you want to look. You are in charge of your body, ” focuses on hair and being bald as a woman, although there is much more to our looks than what is on top of our heads. The world I would like to live in is one in which people are fully aware that what you wear or don’t wear is not an excuse for anyone’s behavior and cannot be legitimately brought up in public discourse and courts. There are multiple cases all over Europe where the victims’ choice of underwear was used by the defense lawyers as proof of consent in rape cases. Every year victims suffer and sometimes take their own lives because the trial traumatizes them again and there is little support to help them cope with being mistreated and not listened to over and over again. In 2018 this created a protest online (#ThisIsNotConsent) and on the streets of Dublin, and I felt unbearable rage going through my veins. I wrote an angry poem as a result, and thought it helped. A poem is not enough. I am still angry, and will be for the foreseeable future. I cannot say “Look the way you want to look” without acknowledging rape culture and its impact on people’s lives. Our rights can be taken away by people with more privilege, and really depend on whether other people will choose to use their power against ours if something goes wrong.

I appreciated that Chanel Miller acknowledged the role of privilege in her story, the one of the “talented athlete,” the rapist, as well as her own. In many ways she has benefited from the stable and peaceful life she had before the crime was committed, which has surely helped her to slowly get back on her feet. A person with no support system who is poorer, queer, an immigrant, has health issues or struggles because of other sources of trauma would have had even more hurdles to jump and could have dropped out of that quest for justice altogether.

If you are a woman there are surely things that are holding you back, and I believe fear is one of the most consequential, for me personally, at least. To feel freer and act boldly we need to untangle the things that we are afraid of and focus on what we need.

I need justice and freedom, and you, whoever you are, need it too.

Believe survivors. Stand in solidarity. Protest. Be yourself, unapologetically!

Yours, full of sorrow, joy and defiance,

Dare to be b@ld

Chanel Miller’s impact statement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK28Powy4ZQ (video), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/06/stanford-sexual-assault-case-victim-impact-statement-in-full (article)

*cisgender= people who identify with the sex they were assigned at birth