Jessica Valenti - Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World

A LITTLE OVER TEN YEARS AGO, IN THE MIDST OF A PARTY IN A CRAMPED Boston hotel room, the two of us had an idea. What if, we said, we put together an anthology about ending rape. At the time, the feminist blogosphere was chock-full of innovative and radical ideas about sexual consent, assault, and harassmentbut the ephemeral nature of blog posts and comment threads meant that these groundbreaking thoughts were here one day, gone the next. We were lucky enough that one of the partygoers happened to be a book editor. Thats how Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, in its thirteenth printing as of this writing, was born.

We published Yes Means Yes because past thinking on rape had not gone far enough. The no means no model of consent was outdated, and maybe even dangerous, setting women up as frigid gatekeepers who could be blamed for anything that happened to them if they took risks in pursuit of their own pleasure. Given the dominant discourse at the time, we assumed a book demanding more for women would reach a niche market at best, but wanted to put it out into the world anyway.

But not only did Yes Means Yes resonate as a book, yes means yes as a new way to think about consent became the gold standard.

Ten years later, theres no party, but were in another hotel roomwriting and thinking once more about the next step forward. To us, the focus for that forward movement is clear: trusting women. Believing women.

Were already halfway there. Harvey Weinstein. Bill Cosby. R. Kelly. Donald Trump. The most famous abusers in modern American history are finally starting to be outed for what they are. Women are speaking up, risking victim-blaming and harassment in order to expose the behavior of men that was previously only whispered about.

Though the consequences for women who come forward about assault are still as present and dangerous as ever, more and more people are starting to believe them than did in the past. We are close to a tipping point on trusting women. What Americans need now is to be pushed over the edge.

This book seeks to do just that, by asking and answering the question that could change the way we think about sexual violence: What if we believed women?

This is not just a book. Its a rallying cry, a plan for action, and a theory of change: BELIEVE ME.

The need has never been more urgent. In part because of the progress women have made and are poised to make, were living in an age of profound backlash. An unrepentant misogynist, accused many times over of sexual harassment and assault, is our president. Mens rights groups that once were seen as the dangerous fringe are now being given front-row seats to change education policy around rape. Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court despite overwhelming evidence that he is a serial sexual predator. Online harassment is a scourge. Misogynists are more emboldened than ever. The stakes for believing women could not be higher.

And, yes, even as were writing this, we can already hear the backlash. It is by now almost a clich: when women say we should believe survivors of sexual violence, a swarm of (mostly) men swoop in to rescue us from our silly thoughts. Thats simply unworkable, theyll mansplain patiently. What about due process? What about innocent until proven guilty? Women arent perfect angels, you know! Are we to believe every single woman?

But the idea that believing women about sexual violence is somehow going too far is simply horseshit. In fact, the reverse is true: if there is any fault to be found in the believe me framework, its that it doesnt go far enough. Luckily, our contributors do.

Whether its Soraya Nadia McDonald on how believing women needs to start with humanizing Black women, or Sabrina Hersi Issa on survivorship as leadership, these essays pave a new path forward with an eye toward the next generation of intellectuals and activists.

Theres an interview with Emmy awardwinning actor Tatiana Maslany that takes the #TimesUp conversation to the next level, a rumination from MacArthur-winning Native lawyer Sarah Deer and her mentor, Bonnie Clairmont, on the deeper meaning of gossip in Native communities, and a call to action from newly elected congresswoman Ayanna Pressley.

All of these visions look toward whats next, but all have been hard-fought over these last months, too. In the time between when we commissioned these essays and when they were finalized, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, a Trump supporter sent pipe bombs to more than a dozen left-wing leaders, a white supremacist murdered two Black people at a Kentucky Kroger after finding himself unable to enter the Black church he planned to target, another white supremacist massacred eleven Jews in their own synagogue on the Sabbath, journalists discovered the Trump administrations plans to erase all federal recognition of trans people, documents were released that reveal the mass sexual abuse of minorsmost of them immigrant and refugee childrenwhile in custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, and honestly too many other atrocities to list here. Suffice it to say that every one of our writers experienced a profound attackall sponsored, sanctioned, or incited by the US federal governmenton their personhood while writing these essays.

It made total sense, then, that the two most common notes we sent our writers while collaborating with them were needs more of your own voice and Can you give us a vision of what a better future could look like? When youre fighting for your own survival, its hard to expose your vulnerable truths, and even harder to find the time and space to envision something much bigger than survival, a future in which the ripple effects of believing women about violence transform every corner of our culture.