What's the Best Way to Handle a Woman's Assault?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

We tend to go easy on men when they punish women for not playing by the patriarchal rules. So let's bring this back to the concept of sympathy. When a woman does what janie did and calls out a man, she was being assertive. That was a plea from a woman to put her fand her pain at the centre of the story. And that is not something that women are supposed to do, not in a patriarchal system.

Several years after Janey was sexually assaulted by her former boyfriend, Mathew, she told some of her closest friends, and her mother, what Mathew had done. Janey was so troubled by her loved ones’ responses that she went back to them years later to record conversations about it all. In this episode: Janey’s story, and philosopher Kate Manne, who coined the term “himpathy” in her 2017 book, “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny.” With co-hosts John Biewen and Celeste Headlee. Part of our summer mini-season of rebroadcasts.

To hear more of Janey Williams’ story and the conversations she had with friends, check out her podcast, "This Happened", available on most podcast apps and at thishappenedpodcast.com.