The many ideas that have been introduced into this thread where women share their stories have been similar to how this conversation has gone across social and journalistic media; women say what’s happened to them and then men come in to demand filters and interpretations be placed on the women’s experiences. This diminishes not only the lessons that men can learn but also the comfort women feel to not only continue sharing but pursuing remedies when something happens to them. From the comfort of their physically safe bubble, men say, ‘but but but’ and its intent to chill the effect for whatever reason (usually the men’s feelings are hurt) is clear. Women’s experiences just in this thread have been chipped away at and undermined, (they were juveniles, their attacker was autistic, the attacker was known to them) and it’s an example of how this conversation has always gone and will always go until enough generations of men have learned empathy while at the same time not being taught chauvinism and sexism.
That this hasn’t been obvious to several posters in this thread proves my point; women share the facts of their reality and men’s response is to insist on shaping and interpreting them to make themselves feel better b/c they feel attacked. Their perception of being attacked is more important to them than the women’s actual experiences of being physically attacked.
This thread is not a safe space, this board is not a safe space and this country will not be a safe space for a very long time.