Why We Don't Tell
#MeToo Why We Don’t Tell --AJ McAninch As I watch Dr. Christine Blasey Ford bravely tell her story while others try to mock her, more women gather strength to support and protect one another. And my own story rises to my consciousness again as it has far more often in my older years where I had suppressed the memories for decades. I’ve tried to sort through this, write about this, failed. But now I feel a responsibility to ‘tell’ because we’ve been silent for so long, and others have decided not to remain there—especially when telling means everything to other women and to this movement and to the future for women, especially in this case. So, my story: I was sexually assaulted when I was 14 by a 17-year-old boy. There was a witness, but he laughed. Both are dead now, but no one would have believed me because I was ‘nobody’ and because of who the boy was. I was not raised with an emotional support system or any confidence at all, so I wouldn’t have told anyway, because...