Rebecca KatzVerified account

Heading, with great apprehension, to a school reunion bringing together several year classes. The combination of looking back and being inundated with news from across the Sea has brought to surface a suppressed memory from my early teens, one that destroyed my sense of worth.

In broad daylight, at a carneval, I was grabbed by a boy - a bully, an older brother of a classmate - who started dragging me behind a tent. He made sure I understood how privileged I should feel for having been chosen to experience what he planned to do with me.

Terrified I fought back but was no match for his brute force. Fortunately an employee saw the situation and intervened allowing me to escape. The incident didn’t last long but it had an everlasting impact on me. I buried the memory and didn’t tell anyone but my closest friend.

A couple years later, working as a messenger at the local factory, we had no recourse to complain about mechanics at the repair shop strategically scheduling their smoke breaks to act as pageant jury with score cards every time we girls passed.

The fear of not being believed or being believed but blamed, ridiculed or punished (overly protected by parents) contributed to #WhyIDidntreport but the bigger issue was the culture of treating girls and boys differently. #BoysWillBeBoys was the mantra condoning their behaviour.

We girls were told that if we even tried to look pretty or attracted any attention, we deserved everything coming to us. Popular culture only compounded this world view.