“Light up the darkness.” - Bob Marley
“I Never Screamed”
Part of me is really not comfortable writing and sending this post. It’s brazen and uncomfortable and triggering.
There’s another part of me, though, that’s tired of hiding from the uncomfortable. The unsanitized. The messy. The truth. Because humans are messy.
How many millions of us hide our trauma? How many of us haven’t screamed? Never did? Never could? Still aren’t?
Plus it’s all over the news right now — the trauma of one woman who survived an assault by a now-former US president (video at end of post). I’m calling it “assault” because I don’t even like using the more accurate words myself.
I share the graphic and the quote because it was the first thing I saw on my Facebook wall this morning: the black background, with the words “I never screamed” over it. Shared by a FB friend.
That my FB friend posted it tells me two things. First, it tells me that my FB friend didn’t scream when she was assaulted… she’s telling us that because she put it on her wall. Simply. Plainly. What else is there to say?
It also tells that my FB friend heard E. Jean Carroll’s response when questioned by Donald Trump’s lawyer yesterday. That she understood it. That she lived it. That she gets it.
Trump’s lawyer asked E. Jean Carroll why didn’t she scream while being traumatized? Assaulted? Terrorized? Violated? Okay the lawyer didn’t use all of those words. But the lawyer did act like E. Jean Carroll had some responsibility to stop the assault; as if she could have. Because that’s a tactic that works, with humans. With juries. In a patriarchal system. It’s blaming the victim. Why didn’t you stop it? Clearly you’re to blame.
The words “I never screamed” repeat the essence of what E. Jean Carroll said to Trump’s antagonistic lawyer. E. Jean Carroll said, “I’m not a screamer… I was fighting. You can’t beat up on me for not screaming.”
You can’t beat up on me for not screaming.
When I heard those words yesterday I couldn’t help but think the same — even as this lawyer attempted to tear open the wounds; to reinjure the victim.
I couldn’t help but flash through a thousand conversations over decades now with other women, too… going over how no, it’s not your fault because you didn’t do X or Y or Z random victim-blaming thing that’s thrown out there. I couldn’t help but flash through scenes where I already knew that no, I didn’t and wouldn’t have screamed, either.
One of the conversations about all this that’s stuck with me is from the height of the #MeToo conversations. I chatted with a woman carrying the guilt of not going to the police about what had happened to her. She felt responsible for every assault that the guy who assaulted her had likely committed after he assaulted her. But the thing is — she isn’t and wasn’t the one doing the assaulting. There are many other reasons why it’s not on her, but the biggest is that it’s the assaulter’s responsibility for stopping the assaults. It’s the assaulter’s responsibility for stopping the assaults. It’s the assaulter’s responsibility for stopping the assaults. She had a breakthrough that week because one person told her she didn’t have to carry that. Why does our culture add even more trauma to traumatized people?
“Because it’s a culture of patriarchy” is the easy answer, and it’s correct. Lots of other reasons too, but patriarchy is huge. And it’s actively reinforced all over the place and always has been here in the US.
In all of the evolving and “wokeness” and also in the hyperactive, brazen, unashamed “anti-woke” pushback, one of the things that keeps getting buried is how women are treated in our society. Even as our rights and our health are further degraded and endangered every week since Roe v. Wade fell.
Yet the very first huge thing that happened after Trump got inaugurated was the biggest women’s march in history. Worldwide. Because women everywhere were shocked, alarmed, retraumatized, and scared that so many Americans didn’t think it was a dealbreaker that Donald Trump was on a recording bragging about assaulting a woman. That they voted for him anyway.
I had relatives who voted for Trump tell me that “that was all overblown by the media,” even though it’s a recording. They didn’t hear me explain how hurtful that was, when they knew at least some of the trauma I’d been through. How many of us have that story… about now ex-friends, and now ex-relatives?
Hearing E. Jean Carroll’s interrogation refreshes all that. It brought me to that moment when we learned the results of the 2016 election and I wondered instantly how afraid I needed to be of the men where I live who voted for this guy. I wondered how empowered they would be now, too, since their toxic guy was in.
I wasn’t alone. Lots of women felt that way. Another local woman friend and I didn’t really go out and about much for a few weeks after the election. We compared notes. When we did finally get out more, we were both hyper alert. I remember the time well. But then we got used to living in this new reality; with deeper, spreading social fissures. I recently heard a quote on a streaming Freevee show called Pretty Hard Cases that explains more: “We normalize things so we don’t spend all our time in a rage.” And then the inauguration was upon us, the Women’s March was next, and the fast-moving hailstorm that was Trump’s presidency began.
Now six and a half years later… nothing has mitigated that risk; that distrust.
Now it’s actually worse, because there’s a hyperactive, aggressive, anti-woke movement right out in the open. They’ve got women in the movement, too, because women having unhealthy and/or unbalanced relationships with toxic men are a huge part of patriarchy and how it perpetuates itself. That’s a fact.
And the toxic men have absolutely been empowered. They have like their own cheering squad in the MAGA movement, in Donald Trump, and in the far-right media empire. They’re actively pushing their toxic masculinity. Promoting it. Promoting dominance and unhealthy relationship dynamics and physical strength and brute force and guns and so much that is part of a culture we could evolve beyond.
Will we?
I don’t know.
We Need Each Other’s Courage
When I was in college, I talked more openly about some of the trauma that had happened to me. I went to “Take Back the Night” rallies, and talked on our small campus about what I’d been through.
I stopped, though, because I didn’t want my life to focus on the trauma I’d survived. I wanted to build it on other stuff. I didn’t want to live in that prior hellscape. I wanted my life to be about things I brought about, and not just because I’d been traumatized and assaulted as a woman. Also, I couldn’t live in a place that focused on some of my worst experiences. We’re all wired differently. I could see that I needed to focus elsewhere. And so I did. I was pretty active for a few years, and then I just stopped. Stepped away. Lots of folks were working on the related issues — including both women and men. I thought it would all evolve over time, and that our culture would grow up a little or maybe a lot. It did grow some, only now with the spectacular pushback we’re going back to levels of misogyny more like they were in the 1980s or even before. Women’s rights are back to pre-Roe levels in many of the zones. WTAH?
Since I stepped away from all this fighting-for-women stuff in college, I’ve never spoken publicly about some of the trauma I survived other than through insinuation. This is the first time, and I’m doing it on a page for the nonprofit I’ve literally put my heart and soul into. It’s risky. And you’ll notice I’m still not sharing much but an acknowledgment that some bad stuff happened, and that I never screamed, either. That’s enough.
It’s also “living it to give it.” We need to connect with each other here. Being honest and authentic is part of it. Talking about uncomfortable things and pushing them front and center is part of it.
Vulnerability builds connection. Solidarity brings courage. And so on.
We need each other. We need each other’s stories, too. We empower each other. My FB friend this morning inspired me with her courage and power, and finally I hit the moment where I’m saying something in public that I’ve never wanted to have on the internet before. But here we are.
We need to bring light to the darkness.
We need to shine spotlights and get sunlight and disinfectant on all this toxic crap in our society — and demand that we live better lives now and that we build better futures.
Will this E. Jean Carroll civil trial against Donald Trump, former-assaulter-in-chief, add to the swirling coalescence of a potential movement? I don’t know.
When Do We Focus On Women? And Girls?
Are there ways we can empower and center women and girls in all of this swirling mess up in this country?
I think so. We can do that as much as we work to empower and center everyone who isn’t a toxic, pale dude seeking to hold on to a status quo that the rest of us would like to evolve away from.
Women and girls are the at the heart; yet are so often overlooked, undervalued, and missed.
But it’s women often driving the movements and holding things together even while we raise kids, look after parents, make sure everyone’s nurtured and fed, and multitask at all hours. Women are often the ones with the quiet pain that we’re used to; that we don’t share… for a zillion reasons. Women are the ones having hushed conversations when a trauma occurs, or when some guy is threatening one of us and we have to activate some spontaneous, stealthy network to keep a threatened woman safe. Women are now likely most often the ones trying to figure out how to deal with outlawed abortion, and to survive the limits on keeping us alive… in state after state.
We need to help each other. We already are. It will help to talk about it — all the things. We need to create the spaces for that. We are going to need big time support as all of this unfolds and intensifies further. And if we’re going to ramp up any kind of major pushback, movement, outcry, phenomenon, or all of the above… no doubt women will be the main drivers.
It will help if we acknowledge and deal with some of the trauma, the emotion, and the tough bits of humanity to all of this. We’ll be stronger together if we allow the tough conversations, and support each other.
We’ll be better positioned to advocate for women and girls if we listen to each other, acknowledge some of the trauma of what we’re dealing with, allow the space to process it, and support each other. We’re in a huge, epic, long fight. It will go better if we don’t sweep the uncomfortable things under the rug. Frankly, there isn’t room, as too much stuff has been shoved away there. Time to shake out the rugs and bring all that funky stuff out into the sun.
Anyway, Shift the Country is creating the space for connection and community as we work to ramp shift up here.
Sign up to be a volunteer, or join any Zoom call next week —
MAYDAY: Where Do We Go From Here? (May 1, Afternoon Session).
MAYDAY: Where Do We Go From Here? (May 1, Evening Session).
Strengthening and Support Session, May 2. ← Strength & solidarity!
Coalition-Building, May 3. ← Also features connection & community.
It’s Time To Raise A Ruckus, May 4. ← Movement-building but in unconventional ways.
Strengthening and Support Session, May 5. ← More solidarity + community + connection!
...and because it's come up in some other discussions I've been having, I want to reiterate your point that those of us who aren't straight cis pale dudes need to stand in solidarity with each other. Our rights are linked.
Neither did I scream. Love you lots. 🦋