I’ve titled this piece “Speak” in honor of Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel about a young woman who went silent after she was raped.
I thought I was numbed out. Thought, after months of one famous and powerful scumbag after another getting taken down (or not), that I had reached outrage overload. But a few days ago, a story appeared in School Library Journal, and then in The New York Times, about sexual harassment in the children’s literature world. Some prominent, powerful, esteemed, and beloved male writers have been accused of preying on aspiring young women writers at children’s-lit conferences.
What? Writers, too? Aren’t we the good guys, the sensitive ones, the progressive ones, the empathic ones? I write novels for middle-grade kids and teens. I have been a proud part of the children’s literature world since the ’90s. I spent the morning yesterday compulsively reading the hundreds of comments in response to the SLJ revelations, getting more and more bummed, thinking, Yeah, right, classic power imbalance. Same old story. Bummed, but still somewhat numb. Then I came across a quote from prizewinning author Laurie Halse Anderson about her “volcanic anger about rape culture and toxic masculinity.” It was not the “toxic masculinity” that made my blood roar and my eyes blur. It was the words “volcanic anger.”
When the Harvey Weinstein story broke last fall, I spent some time working on a poem I called “Coming Forward.” About how I did not. How it never dawned on me I could. In the almost fifty years since I was raped, I have come to know it was not my fault. Even so, I could not bear to put myself back there, in the fear and helplessness. The paralyzing shame. Could not bear to use a word that I did not realize still carries so much power over me. Even now, writing it, my blood pounds and I can hardly see.
I have been practicing these past few months, though. Telling other women, saying the word “rape” out loud to try to strip it of its shame. And it is astonishing, the number of women whose eyes have filled with tears, who have said, “Yes, it happened to me, too.”
My anger is volcanic. For all of us. Though, what a huge relief, thanks to the #MeToo movement and the countless women who have dared to come forward, dared to feel pure rage instead of that confusing mix of rage, humiliation, fear, and shame.
I have been looking for a way to tie this piece to this year’s theme, Generation F. But what is in my heart is last year’s: We are not helpless. Rise. Speak. Make them change.