It’s on Us. All of Us.

Fellow blogger Elizabeth emailed the WYR team in the past few days to see how we were all doing. The Stanford Rapist case has hit us all hard. It hit us hard because it is the same story, the same process we all faced. It is about us, all of us. I told Elizabeth how upset and angry I was as I shared stories of the Stanford rapist and the rapist’s friend who backed him up and blamed the victim.

That woman is not a victim, she is a kick arse survivor and she has shown nothing but courage and strength and I applaud her.

But I was still angry, so very angry.

Lauren penned an open letter to her rapist, which made me cry.

But I did not know how to write a piece encouraging women to speak up or to tell their story because why? My case got thrown out after a month and the guy got a slap on the wrist. This girl’s rapist got his sentence cut drastically. So why bother speaking out?

Then I read Joe Biden’s open letter to the girl, to every girl who this has happened too, to us, to me.

Joe Biden stands true for all of us, he is not biased as to what political party you follow, he stands with and for us and to that I feel so proud. I am not American and my assault did not happen here but I felt overwhelmed that there are really great men in power out there who stand up for women and see the courage we have to go through on a daily basis.

Speaking up is crucial; you need to be heard because you matter. You’re not a silly little girl who deserved this to happen to you. You are a worthy, fundamental part of this world and you count and for someone to undermine you is not OK. It is far, far from OK.

Like Biden said in his letter, it’s on us. All of us.

To the two men who came to the aid of the girl, thank you. I want to see more men get behind women and help women instead of blaming and shaming women.

Read Joe Biden’s full letter here

https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomnamako/joe-biden-writes-an-open-letter-to-stanford-survivor?utm_term=.bgbLLBJJQ#.vcyzzPkkl

biden


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Author

Lindsay Lucas-Bartlett

Lindsay is a British actress currently living in Los Angeles. It was during her time at drama school in London back in 2007 when Lindsay got date raped. After six years of therapy, travelling the globe to get away from London, Lindsay settled in LA where she has been for the past five years. Now happily married with a furry baby of a dog, Lindsay has started her next journey into helping others. Lindsay joined forces this year with VDAY to help bring awareness of sexual and physical violence across the globe that is inflicted on women everyday. Lindsay produced and performed in The Vagina Monologues for the 2015 event and raised over $7,000 for Peace Over Violence, an organization that helps bring this awareness to larger audiences.

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