![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/251\/2014\/05\/yesallwomen.jpg\" "\\"yesallwomen\\"")
<\/a>If we started telling the truth we might never stop.\u00a0 And then what would happen?<\/p>\nYou\u2019d know about the leering older men we worked with at our high school jobs.\u00a0 The burly customers who mocked us for not knowing what \u201ctuna taco\u201d really meant.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d know about the murky nights in college when we couldn\u2019t really consent to any of it.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d know about how ludicrous it is when two men should \u201chey baby!\u201d out their car windows at you in the middle of the day in the middle of the campus of a top tier university hospital.\u00a0 And how unsettling it is when a young man drives slowly alongside of you, chatting you up as you walk home from your first real job.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter that you have a briefcase now.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d know that when those men on the city bike path whistle at you, it isn\u2019t your two graduate degrees that they\u2019re drawn to.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d know what it feels like to be dismissed as just another one of those young women on campus making trouble.\u00a0 And how strangely frightening it is when a senior male colleague targets you in code during of one of his public rants. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter if anyone else knows;\u00a0 you do.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d know what it\u2019s like to be summoned to the president\u2019s office and shown a letter he received from a convicted perpetrator\u2019s friend;\u00a0 it\u2019s a letter that explains all the ways that you are a horrible person for educating young women who are trying to survive sexual assault.\u00a0 Three pages.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry.\u00a0 \u201cYou didn\u2019t do anything wrong.\u201d\u00a0 (Isn\u2019t that precisely what we tell survivors?)<\/p>\n
You\u2019d know what it\u2019s like to be actually afraid that these people will come to your campus, your classroom, your office.\u00a0 To realize how terribly public your life is, even before Facebook was a thing.\u00a0 How vulnerable and targeted you feel.\u00a0 How even tenure doesn\u2019t protect you from terror.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d know how it feels to navigate public spaces when travelling as a female professional, when just trying to get french fries and a beer alone means you have to be aware of male predators; \u00a0when your friend has to ask the front desk staff at a hotel to keep an eye on the man who just propositioned her outside the lobby, and ask the friend who just dropped her off to drive back to the hotel and help her get up to her room safely.<\/p>\n
You might also find out that promotions don\u2019t protect you, that young men sometimes mock older women, and that even your own classroom isn\u2019t a space free from misogynistic insult.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d learn how many second thoughts you have and how many other people and things you have to think about before posting a blog essay telling the truth.\u00a0 And you\u2019re still not sure you should do it. \u00a0And you\u2019re a little bit worried to do it anyway.<\/p>\n
Yes.\u00a0 All women have stories.<\/p>\n
They are even part of the fabric of some pretty decent lives.<\/p>\n
Just ask us. \u00a0We might tell you.<\/p>\n
Then you\u2019d know.<\/p>\n
Then \u2026 what will you do differently?<\/p>\n