Book Week 3

I read a couple of more chapters To the Survivor. They the chapters were about survivors of sexual violence telling their story to the narrator and how they became evolved in advocacy to end sexual violence. The stories I read were so powerful that I almost cried. These survivors allowed themselves to be put in the vulnerable position of letting their private life, public to everyone. There are so many reasons to not publicized these types stories but they have the will power to share their pain to educate people and help others that are going through the same problems is amazing. As a person who still is learning more and more about the issue of sexual violence, these stories give me the closest thing to understanding a survivor's mentality. Even though it might just be a small part of the story and the feeling they experience, it is still better than feeling sympathetic and not knowing anything about the events that happened. I feel that these stories are necessary for people to learn but I feel that it is wrong for wanting them to speak about their stories. As a society we should not need to have someone hurt themselves for us to show compassion and empathy but we need to because compassion is not something everyone has. In the book, men and women all showed a lack of compassion towards these victims. It might seem disgusting but a huge part of our population is like that. I had that the same experience talking about race and class. Since I have bad experiences with race and class, it is hard to talk about it but people do not understand. My lack of speaking does not mean my issues of race and class do not matter, it means that I need to feel comfortable enough to talk about it. Since there has not been a safe space for me to speak, I have not spoken about it. My experiences are not at all like these survivors but I feel empathy towards the problems their going through.