Write to Heal Rape Culture

Like so many of us, the recent election results caught me off-guard and knocked me off balance. To re-center myself, I first gave myself time to mourn and then made the decision to channel despair into action. Of all the many well-documented reasons why I believe our president-elect is unfit to lead our great country, as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, the one that hits me personally the hardest, is the fact that he is an admitted sexual predator. By saying this, in no way do I mean to minimize the threats posed by his statements against minorities, immigrants, gays and gender variant people, people with disabilities, the earth, or established scientific facts. I simply mean that the place where I personally feel I have the most passion and power to act is around the fact that the election of a self-proclaimed sexual predator is undeniable proof to me that we do indeed live in a rape culture. That’s why I’m launching a group tentatively called Write to Heal Rape Culture. Its mission is to connect and support all writers, emerging or established, who write or want to write about anything that helps us identify and heal from the effects of rape culture, on both the individual and societal levels. The simplest way to get involved is to use the hashtag #WritetoHealRapeCulture whenever you post or share on social media, blog or write about topics related to this issue. It’s time to claim our power, to raise our voices together to enlighten and educate about the rampant minimizing, denying, silencing and shaming around sexual violence and harassment of all kinds. A preliminary general interest and idea gathering event will happen on Friday, December 2, 2016 at Generations Fitness Studio located at 222 East 75th Street, apt LC, from 6:30-8pm. The official full launch of the group will be in early 2017. Whether or not you attend the meeting on 12/2, if you’d like to stay informed or get involved, please comment below or send me an email at sheryl.genfit@gmail.com and mention your interest. We are all still #StrongerTogether.