“I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse,” are words that lend themselves to whispers in the night, a disclosure between friends over a glass of wine. But these are not words that are meant to be spoken by a professional woman working in academia, for they break a social contract – the life of… Read more →
Tag: child abuse
Dental Work and Colonoscopies, for Someone Who Used to Always Say OK
Content warning: This piece discusses parent-child sexual abuse, coercion, and addiction. Nobody likes getting a colonoscopy. It’s not just the procedure, but the “prep” of taking a laxative and knowing your bathroom needs to be within easy reach for the next thirty-six hours or so. But what I call “Dad’s Playbook” — his instructions for… Read more →
Will Technology Change How We Understand Interpersonal Violence? Maybe. Probably Not.
The Atlantic’s August cover story by Barbara Bradley Hagerty, “An Epidemic of Disbelief,” describes how some jurisdictions, in the midst of processing backlogs of rape kits going back years and in some cases decades, are uncovering DNA evidence that is changing what we know about rape. DNA testing has shown that there is an extraordinarily… Read more →
On Poverty, Morality, and Mothering
In 1930, nineteen-year-old black (preta) Jovelina Pereira dos Santos, a live-in domestic servant in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, hid her pregnancy from her family and employers, gave birth in secret, and asphyxiated her newborn immediately after delivery. Santos already had a young son named Ernesto who was a little over one year of age. Santos… Read more →