To speak about sexual assault is to risk being violated again by strangers and in the public arena. The sources who speak off the record do so at great risk.

In the real world, women who speak out are rarely believed, and their supporters and friends are tarred as well. In the world women inhabit - the real world of flesh-and-blood humans - anonymity is safety. Anonymous sources are seen - by the public and by editors - as dubious, as people with agendas. The most reliable sources are those who speak on the record. They may sometimes be admissible as “hearsay”.Įditors also want more than a woman’s word before they can print an article. Whispered conversations with girlfriends and aunties - the ones who help survivors to clean up, to sit up and drink water, to throw away torn panties - those do not qualify. The evidence courts want is “verifiable”. This evidence does not write itself in tears. Guilt is established on the basis of evidence. In the world that men have built, accusation alone is insufficient. Any claim that someone is a murderer has to be proven. The legal and media professions are founded on strong traditions of “evidence”, inherent in which is the idea that the burden of proof rests with the accuser. In the public world - the world of courtrooms and newspapers and television - the inverse is true: men are innocent until proven guilty. Women often keep their eyes on girls too, not because they don’t trust girls but because they are fearful on their behalf. Women often keep their eyes firmly on men - even ones we know - because of the terrible things they know men can do. In the real world - that of flesh-and-blood humans - men are indeed guilty until proven innocent. A lot of women and parents I know raise their children according to the common-sense understanding that men are guilty until they prove themselves to be worthy of trust.

Conspire 2017