Why I won't let shame about sexual assault silence me any more
When I had the idea of asking women to tell me the stories
they found most difficult to tell, I knew I was entering uncharted
waters. I knew it because I had experienced the same silencing myself.
Alarming rate of university sexual assaults revealed
Human Rights Commission report reveals one in five students are sexually harassed at university. In my early 20s I was sexually molested by a GP while he was
inserting an IUD. For decades I was unable to tell anyone what had
happened to me. Every time I thought about the incident I felt hot with
shame.
Yet rational, grown-up me knew perfectly well that I had
done nothing wrong. I had behaved as a patient behaves with a doctor. It
was the GP who had behaved appallingly and broken our unspoken
contract. Yet, somehow, I had shouldered both the shame and the blame.
