Fathers, Daughters, and Sexual Assault

Monica Hesse: “For all the stereotypes that linger about women being too fragile or emotional, these past weeks have revealed what many women already knew: A lot of effort goes into protecting men we love from bad things that happen to us. And a lot of fathers are closer to bad things than they’ll ever know.”

As a father myself, this is hard to read and difficult to think about. But as I’ve talked with Renae and read the thoughts, tweets, and posts of many women I know, it’s become increasingly clear that men need to step up — and more importantly, we need to listen. There’s so much going on that we’re blind to simply by virtue of being men.