"I've told this story before. At St. Olaf College, in 1979, a group of us freshmen women, who were just getting to know each other and our school, sat around our older RA's room, and she talked to us bluntly about sexual violence and being safe. Then, one of my new college friends suddenly started crying and shared what had happened to her just before her sophomore year of high school. And one by one, after that, we all went around in a circle and shared our experiences. Turns out that in our group of 20 or so privileged 18 year old white girls, each one of us of had already experienced being groped, followed, cat-called, propositioned, raped, chased, punched, choked, bitten or otherwise assaulted by a man or men. That evening, each one of us sat, shocked, mouths open, hearing each others' stories. We each thought such things had only happened to us. And none of us had spoken up, except maybe to a friend. Fast forward to today. One of my daughters recently worked as a therapist in a domestic abuse sanctuary, helping women who came to them for treatment and healing. Ladies, there's a reason the show is called Furious. Things have not changed much since 1979. If anything, it has gotten worse. Much worse. We all need to be much, much angrier."
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