Yesterday mattered. Having worked with girls and young women for decades, I know this.
Generation after generation, we let our girls feel alone in their experience of sexual violation.
Yesterday mattered. Millions of women and girls, on every continent – including Antarctica – made anti-grabbing, anti-rape culture signs and took to the streets.
Let that sink in for a moment: Millions around the world took to the streets and proclaimed that a man’s grabbing, groping and assaulting is not okay.
Millions spoke out against all forms of injustice, and wherever there is injustice – sexual violence exists.
Sexual violation of black and brown girls was legally sanctioned through slavery and accepted by their white sisters.
Today, sexual slavery still thrives. FBI statistics tell us that the average age of those forced into prostitution is 12 – 14.
People who are most vulnerable to the whims of those in power – refugees without documents, poor women and girls, black and brown women and girls, LGBTQ youth – are also most vulnerable to sexual aggression on the streets as well as forced prostitution.
Millions of people marched against these injustices yesterday.
I couldn’t be at the march, yet even watching from afar, I could feel the cultural shift. A seismic shift.
Yesterday, grabbing and groping became less culturally acceptable.
Yesterday, girls became less isolated in their experience.
Yesterday, girls learned that metaphorically “grabbing back” is a valid option.
That matters.
Sexual violation will still happen, and girls will still feel alone – but a little less so.
Yesterday was a Spirit Full day.
