She is currently columnist at the guardian. Im going read one quote from the president of planned Parenthood Foundation of america. Thats the case of feminism today. So on that note, i would like to welcome jessica. [applause] hi, how are you. Thank you guys for coming out on a saturday where its actually nice out and not so terrible and human and thanks to bookcourt. Its really nice to be here. So im excited to read from the book and to take some questions from you guys, but first i just we wanted to take a minute to say a fbi words about womens stories and specifically i wanted to talk about the consequences of women telling their stories because its something that ive been thinking about recently. The week before the book came out, i was having a lot of trouble sleeping and a lot of anxiety and waking up with heart palpitations. This is reaction, nervousness to having a book come out but not to this level and its not that im ashamed of anything that ive written in sex object or that anything is so outrageous or so incredible, its that ive been writing long enough and ive been paying attention long enough to know what happens when women tell their own stories, right, no matter what they say. It can be about a harassment, what you think of a particular Television Show and even what you eat for dinner. I will never remember logging onto instagram and i have a picture of ravioli that i had cooked and underneath a 14yearold boy that wrote internet. Theres always a danger there of being told that youre too selfinvolved, a danger of being told that what youre interested in is superficial or frivolous and theres the realtor fying danger for making yourself a target for harassment and threat which is for any woman that spends time online knows unfortunately. I dont mention the teenagers or consequences or women sharing stories to say that im so awesome because, in fact, i often feel the exact opposite. Yes, this book is incredibly personal. Do i feel like im making vulnerable by putting it out to the world but at the end of the day, i occupy a position that makes it a lot easier for me to tell my story, right . My job will be safe after my book is published. My body will be safe, my family will be safe and thats not true for a lot of people, so as we talk tonight and have a conversation, i just want to remember that the ability to tell our stories and our personal stories without fear of consequences is a real privilege and obviously i feel so grateful that i can feel my story and because of the incredible work that if he can knicks doing online and over the last ten years, we are in the super exciting moment in story telling and i think thats a direct result of the work that feminisms have been doing, blogging the live journals and more recently like twitter and tumbler and identify been thinking about this a lot over the last week, image a lot of you have read the letter from the woman at stanford. I think at last count there were 11 Million People had written, shared it and i couldnt help to think that this never would have happened, one young woman, victim impact statement and going viral like this and so many people reading it if it hadnt been for the internet or ground work laid by so many women to create this carve out this space. For women storyies. I recognize that a lot of the stuff im going to be reading tonight is more on the depressing side. Ii want to make clear that im really an optimistic. I promise, i truly am. Ive always been an optimist and its really the work of other women telling their stories that give me a lot of hope. So i just wanted to say that. So the first piece of im going to read is actually the first essay and its called line violence. It was this essay that really made me want to write the book. It was an essay that just sort of came out of me. I didnt sit down to write it. I just sort of bla. And it was its a difficult essay to have out there for me but im glad that i wrote it and im glad that i looked the book. It took me a long time to realize that i was not the only girl whose high school asked her on a date and not the only one who sat on the track in front of a man on the day he forgot to wear underwear so his penis was fully visible. I remember joking about it with my father, he had to explain to me that it wasnt an accident and im not the only one who had a boyfriend to call me stupid. Not the only one grew up and even if they were my friends, first year i saw my first penis, two years i would lose virginity and tired of frat boys and having trouble sleeping. I felt sick all of the time. In my family female suffering is linear. Skipping the men and marking with night terrors and my mother told me about being molested from a family friend, she calls him her uncle. We were sitting on my twin bed, she was eight when he came to the house with ice cream and while mother was cooking dinner, he doesnt remember what she touched or how and she said nothing after ward. When my grandmother was 10 her father died of alcoholism and she went to live with aunt and uncle. She told her uncle and was sent to orphanage the next danger. Me getting off relatively easy and one time without my realizing until i went to put my hands in my back pocket and had semen. The neighborhood pervert who masturbateed and the cops told him that the man could do whatever he wanted. Just point and laugh, that usually sends them running. Usually, worst than the violations themes is the creeping understanding of what it meant to be female, if something bad happens and how bad, of course, what feels like a curse is not really ours, we dont own it, the shame and discuss belong to perpetrators that leave us with the books say and the frequency with which women have been hurt, hurt me, my daughter is five and i i want to inoculate, i want layla to have her fathers genes, this is the one way in which i wish she was not mine. When i was pregnant i often joked about wanting a boy, a baby girl would turn into a teenage girl and this is closer to the truth. When a rich man in delaware was given probation for raping his 3yearold daughter there was outraging but it was the lack of punishment that seem to offend and the fact that some men rape 3yearolds and its presented as a given. Living in a place that has given up on the expectation of your safety means Walking Around in a permanently disassociated state. You walkthrough them on the subway and on the street, you see them on the television, you hear them on the music and its the air you breathe. And she said that the problem with women is that we dont speak from from out power but place of victimization. As if we had actual power to speak from. Victims doesnt need to be identity but product of fact, some women healed by rejecting victim hood but in a world they regularly tell women theyre asking for, i dont know if laying claim to victim is is a terrible idea. Something bad happened to me more accurately someone did something bad to me. This happens, when this reality became clear into me, watched movies, i didnt make a conscious decision not to lie down and die but i do know my survival instinct won over, the loudest girl, laughed on old men that came to her, i was going to be the best sex object i could be. Over 20 years later i feel sick, i cant sleep but now i understand why, we know that direct violence causes trauma, we have shelters for it, counselors, services, we know that children who live in violent neighborhoods are more likely to develop ptsd, the daily fear of changeing brains and psychological flashbacks and despite all the things that we know to be true, violent and we still have no name to what happens to men living in a culture that hates them. We are sick people with no disease given no explanation for our supposedly disconnected symptoms. When you catch a cold or virus your body has ways of letting you know that you are sick, you cough, you get a fever, your limbs literally hurt, what diagnosis do you get to a stranger whispers pussy and those who walkthrough that dont feel any of this, what does it tell you of the hoops, i dont believe any of us walk away unscathed. I do know that a lot of us point and laugh, the strategy of my aunts and mothers and reaction when a 15yearold called me or a grownup reporter writes about my tits. Pretending these offenses roll off our back is strategic, dont give them the satisfaction, but it isnt the truth. You lose something along the way. Mocking the men who hurt us as mockable as they are, starts to feel like most con descending of cat calls, you look better when you smile because sarcasm in version of the expectation even as we are eating shit, requires strength i do not have anymore, rolling with the punches and getting as good as we are getting, this inability to be vulnerable, the unwillingness to be victims even if we are doesnt protect us. It just covers up the wreckage. But no one wants to listen to our sad stories unless theres smoothed over. No one wants to hear a woman talking or writing about pain without a solution Silver Lining or happy ending, we are just complainers, downers who realize how good we actually have it. Mens pain are the stuff of myth and legends and narrative that sheep everything we do but womens pain is a backdrop, push the story along, disrupting the story means we are needy or selfish or worst of all, man haters as of all men have done to women the mere act of not liking them for most offenses. Often times the bad ones too but we are not in full revolution, its Pretty Amazing when you consider this truth, men get to kill women and come home to meal by a woman cooked by one. Pointing and laughing and making it easier on everybody was the best way to tell our stories, but if youre sick and want to be well, you need to relay the details of your symptoms, glossing over them ensures a lifetime of illness. My daughter is happy and brave. When she falls down or gets hurt the first words out of her mouth are, im all right, mom. I want her to be okay always. So my refusal to keep laughing or making you comfortable make seem like a downer, the truth is what optimism looks like, naming what is happening to us, telling the truth about it as ugly and uncomfortable it can be means that we want it to change, that we know its not inevitable. I want to line of my mother and grandmother to stop here. [applause] thanks. Im going to read a couple more pages. This is from a chapter called subway, i grew up in queens and i think that a lot of young women who grew up in new york or a lot of cities where theres Public Transportation can probably relate to this unfortunately. The two worst times for dicks on subways, when the train car is empty or when its crowded. As a teenager if i found myself in an empty car i would immediately leave even if it meant changing cars as the train moved which terrified me because if i didnt, i just knew the guy sitting across from me lift his newspaper to reveal his cock and i wasnt going to sit there and worry about it. On crowded train cars i didnt see dicks, i felt them pressing into my hips, men pretending that the rocking was because of the jostling of the train. On the worst day on eighth grade i didnt notice at all. I was listening to walkman and thinking about how warm it was and when i stepped and the sun hit my face and i was to be to be almost home. When i start today put my hands in my back pocket i felt something wet. I made it the whole ride noticing that a man had come on me. I wiped my hands on the lower leg of my jeans and looked to see if nip had noticed. I walked three back homes with my backpack swung as low as possible so nobody saw what happened or thought that i peed on myself. I peeled the jeans off and even though the semen had given two instead of one layer of protection the skin on my ass was damp from it. My shirt still on. I wrapped a pink towel around myself and turned my jeans inside out before putting them in the Laundry Basket before my mother would find out. I knew she would cry. I piled some sheets on top of the sheets to be safe. Later i would find out that the guy rubbing on you isnt just an ass hole, he has a disorder with the name that sounds more like a frankie cheese than bouncing in the train until he does it on your pants and the diagnostic of mental disorders, the American Psychiatric disorder that involves touching or rubbing against a nonconsenting person. Theres online forums for men because lets be rare its mostly men who rub on girls whenever they can do it. They have handles like bum feeler and share stories of pictures of the women they have dry humped. Some give advice like stepping back. Almost like you cant help. Not like you pray on them like a piece of meat. I used to joke that i had a sign on any head that flashes, yes, sir, i would love to see your penis. The first time i ever saw one three blocks away from my house. I just missed a train on my way to junior high so i was the only other person there on the other end of the platform. He was so far away that i saw the outline of his shape but i noticed his hands moving and he was walking quickly towards me with the penis in his hands. I thought myself prepared for Something Like this. I knew i was supposed to yell or run but i just stood there. I didnt like away or turned around and even though i felt my knees given out my feet felt strongly planted to the ground. As another train stopped, the doors of the train opened and he walked on normally, my feet still on the same place i tap it had man in the suit coming off and asked for help in a small voice but he didnt stop moving so i stood there. When the next train came i got on figuring i should get to school but got off when stopped at queens plaza when i noticed that my face had pens and needles from breathing strangely. Every day my father walked me up the stairs to wait for the train with me. Booth worker let him after what dad explained what happened and gave him a bag of cherries as a thank you every month. I noticed an odd shape under my fathers jacket, he tried to distract and he showed me the metal pipe that was sticking out of his pants. No cop would ever arrested for beating a man that flashes children. Toad he told me he knew it was a lie. Only being able to looks they gave me and mouth the words may the silence come unthreatening. One man in the business suit lifted my headphone off of one ear, came close enough that i felt his breath, take care of your titties for me. I started seeing dick so regularly behind newspapers barely tucked into unzipped jeans, i start today assume every man on the subway was she thinking about showing me his penis. Any time a man sitting next to me i was ready to move or yell at him if i was in that kind of mood. I think i will stop there. [applause] so lots of dicks for a saturday night. My apologizes. [laughter] hopefully not too bad for you guys. Im happy to take questions. And i think theres a microphone going around if you just want to it doesnt its for the lovely camera man over there. I guess i have two questions, i guess this thing doesnt work, sorry. Do you think things have gotten any better since you were a child and how do you keep it together with all of these dramatic experiences . You know, i joke when i say that but its also sort of serious. I think like growing up in a working from workingclass parents in queens the idea of ever going to therapy was like thats a richperson thing and you dont do that and we dont talk about sort of Mental Health as a feminist issue enough specially when it comes to impact of sexism. I think its gotten better. Id like to think so, you know, i have a kid who goes to school in brooklyn and he will take the subway one day and walk around new york city one day. It was really interesting and its hard for me to tell anymore because once i hit a certain age men stopped saying stuff to me and its a very strange thing. It actually started to taper off when i became an adult, actually and once i hit my 30s and you sort of become invisible in a way thats shocking and awesome. I would like to think so and we certainly have what gives me hope is that we are talking about it so much more and women are sharing their stories specifically around street harassment and theres organizations that do all this great work and awareness and working with the mta to get [inaudible] thank you. A lot of them were oh. And a lot of them were directed, you know, at you. Yeah. And theyre not just comments to cut you off your knees but also very violent. Yeah. Given that this is a agreement moment for women to tell their stories, how do we even keep the momentum when there is more platform for people like that to target you . Totally. So the question who didnt hear, i write for the guardian and they did this sort of analysis of all the comments on the site and they found that im the number one most harassed writer on the site. Not so shockingly mostly women and men of color and actually another most hated columnist right here. Hey. So we have a great honor of being the most harassed and abused people at the guardian. Yeah, you know, right, so a lot of wonderful things you can find support and a terrible thing is that theres all of this, oh, youre stupid, oh, im going to rape you, like a really terrifying stuff as well. And the truth is i dont know what to do about it. You know, im proud to work for a place like the guardian where they are taking this sort of internal look at what they can do better to to make the platform better but in terms of social media i think its trickier because there doesnt seem to be a financial incentive to change anything. What happens to individual writers in a lot of the book deals with trying to work through like what being called for ten years or what Online Harassment does to you but i worry is broader implications of who is going to be writers and who is going to share the voice. I speak on College Campuses all of the time and every single place that i speak, i thought i wanted to be a writer and i see the harassment you get and i dont know. Should i become a writer and i cant say yeah, sure, itll be fine because i dont know that. I have a really big concern about the generation of voices for marginalized communities. Why would you want to put yourself in that situation, right . We have a couple. One here, one here. Hi, thanks for two great essays. Thank you. So obviously you have gone you had some terrible experiences, but i am wondering was there a defining moment when you decided you were going to write about this or be more vocal . There wasnt a defining moment. There was a slow roll of recognizing this is what i was but what i was really interested in with the book was not the like the impact of one particular experience or like two particular experiences, but the cumulative impact like we have a language for like if someone gets harassed or someone gets sexually assaulted, we call them survivors, we have all the words. We have no long to explain what it means to live in a culture for years on end that is largely disdainful of women, right. Like what does that to do you psychologically . I have