Why didn’t they come forward sooner? This is why.

By Elizabeth Backstrom

To each person reading about and watching the women come forward to say Donald Trump touched them inappropriately, groped them or sexually harassed them, who then turns to a friend or takes to the Internet and says, ‘I wonder why these women haven’t come forward sooner,’ please stop whatever you are doing. Go find a mirror. Take a hard look at it. You, helpful Internet commenter, are one of the reasons these women have not come forward sooner.

Have you ever been sexually assaulted? I have. Probably the only thing even close to that in levels of gross/excruciating/horrible was having to tell people the story of how it happened. To watch their faces as they took in the details, to know their reaction, not the reality, was what determined if my story was legitimate or not, is not an experience I care to repeat.

I’ve never spoken publicly about my story, but I’m going to now because I like to hope terrible things sometimes happen for a reason. I understand the pain these women experienced, and the pain they are going through all over again by telling the details of their encounters to the world.

He was old enough to be my father. I was young, too young to drink, go to high school, or even middle school. I waited a while to tell anyone too. Mostly because I was afraid. He was threatening. I was also confused. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I should have stopped it from happening. How would I tell the story? Who would I tell, and who would believe me? He was well-respected, a church and community leader. I wasn’t.

Luckily for me, I had some supportive, kind people in my life who encouraged me, who believed me and who gave me the courage to tell my story, and to keep telling it, until justice, in my situation, was done. Many, many women aren’t so lucky. Especially women who confront a powerful man. Many women are children when they are assaulted. They are young teens, or low on a career food chain and propositioned by a boss. They know no one will believe them, so they keep silent.

But there is strength in numbers. One person coming forward to tell a story sometimes makes other people brave enough to do so. Nothing illustrates that more clearly than the 27 million people who responded to author Kelly Oxford’s call to ‘tweet me your assault.’

When you hear a story like the ones women are telling about Donald Trump, or Bill Cosby, or another powerful male figure, one who has the financial capacity to ensure someone’s silence and a track record of doing so, I ask you to stop and think for a minute before you accuse that person of lying, of sharing their story as a political move, of holding up that one example you remember of someone lying about rape as proof that this person is making up their story.

Put yourselves in their shoes for just a minute, consider the power balance in these situations and how hard it would be to tell this story to even your closest friends, and maybe reconsider that comment. For women everywhere, please consider it.