In response to “From the Publisher: Change is at our doorstep” published on Sept. 20.
I am in shock and I had to read it a second time to see if it was really true, what you wrote.
Excuse me, have you ever heard of #MeToo, #TimesUp or if you see something, say something?
The second paragraph states, “What teenage boy isn’t guilty of some inappropriate behavior?”
Sexual harassment, date rape and sexual assault are way more than “inappropriate behavior” and all of it is absolutely not okay or acceptable in high school, as an adult or at anytime in anyone’s life.
These words are degrading and demoralizing not just towards Professor Christine Ford, but toward girls, women, men and boys—everywhere who has been victimized by “some inappropriate behavior.”
The facts are one out of every four girls and one out of every four boys will be sexually assaulted before they reach the age of 18. High school girls are five times more at risk and 93 percent of them know their attacker. [Information from rainn.org.]
I am a survivor of high school date rape in 1961. At age 13, I gave birth to my daughter.
As a survivor of incest, rape, sexual harassment and sexual assault, I must say it is exactly words like these—and in our hometown newspaper of all places—that encourage, justify and excuse illegal criminal and unjust misbehavior like Judge Kavanaugh’s and President Trump’s as well as millions of other male perpetrators like the high school and college boys who, as they were raping school girls, are videotaping it with their iPhones and putting it online.
Do you know how many of those girl victims have killed themselves by now? A lot…
And there are so many other victims who somehow survived who now also live with the lifelong ramifications of “some inappropriate behavior.”
Millions, literally, of girls and women all over the world and even here in Malibu.
Every person who reads your article from today has been given permission because you are a person in power, [as] the publisher, and they now can think, “Hmm, maybe it’s okay to maybe it’s not that big of a deal to sexually assault someone like Professor Ford is accusing Judge Kavanaugh of or any and everyone else.”
Well, it most certainly is not okay. And condoning words like your printed words aren’t simply an “opinion”; they are kerosene on the age old degradation and second class citizenship women and girls fight against every day of our lives.
With all due respect, please stop and take it back out loud.
We need your help, people like you in power positions, to fight against all forms of sexual abuse
Ann Patricia Meredith