[Content Note: Rape culture; misogyny; description of sexual assault at link.]
"In some ways it all comes down to this: for all the regressive belief still lingering in our culture that women are sentimentally attached to the tropes of victimhood (and why not anyway, when there are so few central roles for women to play out in their lives that don't cast them as a side-part?), if you don't actually want this role—and I don't actually want this role—its continual resurfacing in your life is a source of infuriation. Big male Great American Writer infuriation, which would probably be taken seriously if one of Roth-Mailer-Updike Great Male Narcissists wrote it down. Burning, uncontainable anger that—for all you've tried to do, for all you've tried to achieve, for the hours and hours you have worked and worked, the whole languages you have taught yourself—a man can still humiliate you with sexually predatory behaviour, embarrassingly clichéd, 70s Philip Roth-style 'come on baby, take it like a good girl' misogyny, and reduce you back to the role of victimhood—which, if you articulate, would apparently just make you 'unprofessional' anyway."—An anonymous female journalist, documenting being sexually assaulted by a male journalist she respected, and the personal and professional aftermath. I strongly recommend reading the entire thing, if you can.
[H/T to Shaker rosenleaf.]
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