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  1. Mariah MacCarthy
    Mariah MacCarthy October 24, 2012 at 5:31 pm | | Reply

    The “whining” to which Richard Dawkins was referring was Rebecca Watson being uncomfortable with a man asking her for coffee alone in an elevator at 4 in the morning after she’d spent all day being very, very public about her discomfort with being sexualized in her own community. He sarcastically said (I paraphrase), “Stop whining, women who have real problems like female genital mutilation and getting stoned for adultery–American women have REAL problems like getting asked to coffee!”

    With the shaming we get–sometimes from respected members of our chosen communities, as in this case–when we try to protect our own boundaries, is it any wonder that survivors of sexual assault are so often so silent? And then we get shamed for being silent. There’s no consistency except that women keep losing. Fuck everything.

    1. E.S. Henry
      E.S. Henry October 24, 2012 at 5:35 pm | | Reply

      It’s no surprise at all. Unfortunately, when men in power tell us that we’re being “silly” or “unreasonable” it undermines any woman from having power over her own voice.
      I encourage everyone to read Rebecca Watson’s article for themselves, by the way – the more that we listen to one another, the more we can stop this from happening.

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