[cw: sexual assault] So I am at Stanford for the very first time, invited for a conference on maps and gender. I'm presenting on Christine de Pizan, who creates a space on the literary map for women's stories--including stories of assault and abuse.
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I think about rape and assault in literature. I look at it in academia. And in the US in 2019. And let's be blunt: I do this because someone raped me in 2013. I do this because I carry the stories other people have shared with me. There is nowhere to put those stories down.
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I am here where Brock Turner raped Chanel Miller, aka Emily Doe. Her victim statement was not just eloquent--it was revolutionary. She spoke to and for an invisible siblinghood. And her experience was witnessed and interrupted by active bystanders.
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Because of our cultural vacuum of acknowledgement of sexual violence (up until recently), this made the site of Chanel Miller's rape the closest thing survivors have to a memorial. It led to thinkpieces on how we need a national monument to/for rape victims. Still don't have one.
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In the meantime, whether or not Stanford likes this it hosts the next nearest thing. It's turned the location into a garden. It promised to put Miller's words on a plaque, but then refused the quote she chose. A group has nonetheless overlaid her words:https://www.dearvisitor.app/
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This is what we have. There is, I admit, a discomfort to visiting a rape site. There's also a solidarity *because of Miller's public words.* It's a space that exemplifies turning the narrative around, foregrounding OUR experiences and not our attackers' vaunted futures.
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I can't find it.
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