Introduction: Can We Live and Work Securely in Our Bodies? It's Time to Talk

Abstract

Faced with the dispiriting, malevolent reality of “Trump world,” many pundits have bemoaned what seems to be a dismantling of Martin Luther King's famed precept, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” At the same time, however, King’s ideal may be finding new life in the voices of the countless individuals who constitute the burgeoning movement to speak out, identify, and address the long-silenced and entrenched history of pervasive sexual misconduct perpetrated against them by men (and in some cases women) who have abused their power. 1 Power, itself, is a noxious aphrodisiac—one in which the means, the motive, and the cover-up of these acts supports a code of silence protecting many operating with impunity for an unconscionably long time. But even as individuals are speaking up, there is still so much more to say. Naming sexual abuse or harassment, as we all know, does not make it disappear.