Margo Shea

(October 10, 2016) Note:  I wrote and posted this blog post almost two years ago.  And then --  Donald Trump came along.  And I was reminded -- in the most disturbing of ways -- that these stories are so many women's stories.  As mild as they may be, they are scarring.  As quotidian as they may be, they are wrong. Donald Trump has triggered our traumatic memories of sexual violence.  I want to join the chorus of women who are saying, "I don't want to be silent anymore.  If my silence is my complicity, then I will be loud." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I had no intention of telling her. No intention, in fact, of sharing my story of the bizarre sexual assault or assault-lette that occurred last weekend -- beyond my husband and the Facebook message I hurled like a scared grenade immediately after it happened to two of the most reflective feminists and genuinely empathet

Not a lot in the news to inspire and hearten me at the moment. You? As far as I am concerned, it has been one of the most painful news cycles in recent memory and the fractiousness of social media made me dial back my own presence in the virtual spaces that have become my stomping grounds.  I maintain that knowing what is happening in the world is a civic responsibility, but sometimes fulfilling that simple act is wearing.  Made more wearisome, of course, by my awareness that I enjoy a luxury not known or experienced by so many thousands of people living with, living through, living and dying amidst the throes of war, atrocity, earthquakes, epidemics.  The luxury of finding the news exhausting. Amidst stories of ebola, of bodies falling out of the sky, of Gaza , Gaza, Gaza,  this photo of a grinning woman on the BBC news page caught my attention: The photo seems to suggest, "Look at me.  I am smiling. So there."  Actually, that is pretty much what this selfie, like