February 14, 2022 - Avidly.org

The past few weeks—scratch that—the past few years have been triggering for many women. Most recently, at Harvard, a bunch of powerful professors closed ranks around one of their own who was accused of sexual harassment. In the sociological research around rape victims, the data suggests that “institutional betrayal” —when colleges participate in various forms of protecting the assailants — increases rates of sexual dysfunction, anxiety and depression among victims. Let me also venture that for victims of less violent but still consequential forms of sexual harassment, institutional betrayal is a big part of how the harm goes down.

It has taken me twenty five years, in a way, to write this essay. The institutional betrayal at issue here happened to me in high school, and I’m now a college professor and a mother of daughters. I wrestle on a day-to-day basis with how to care for my students while also advocating for myself in the increasingly shitty realities of academia. My experience of sexual harassment and institutional betrayal as a teenager did not make me into someone who went through life always knowing how to stand strong with the sisterhood. In fact, I internalized the harm in ways that contributed to its perpetuation. That’s what I’m writing about here.

I felt compelled to publish this essay, to name my high school teacher after all these years because, while I want to think carefully about complicity and words and mistakes and violence, I suspect that some harm somewhere in the personal histories of those powerful people at Harvard made them feel they had to pander to power to stay safe. Of course, they don’t need my compassion. But maybe they need to hear that the institution will never love you.

I have come to recognize, at this late date, that sometimes choosing yourself over the institution means claiming not only your mistakes but your own unpleasantness. I’m naturally a people-pleaser, but I’m also outspoken. For this, I have been repeatedly punished by a culture that values women who are unfailingly pleasant. Often, simply for withdrawing my pleasantness, I have faced a great deal of masculine anger.

Again, it has taken me twenty five years to write this essay.