I Will Destroy You
Understanding the cost of standing up to corporations, cults and creeps—and doing it anyway
In print, I’m always reminding women haunted by their assaults or sexual harassment they do have the strength to come forward, speak out, obtain legal advice to pursue possible litigation. Do it, do it, do it.
For too long, I didn’t take my own advice.
Do you know what sexual assault victims, survivors and whistleblowers go through when they even consider coming forward? Do you know what (the few) people who stand up for them endure?
The headwinds, they come at you hard.
The consequences of naming your assailant, they tell sexual assault victims, could be catastrophic. But they might not be.
Choose.
If you choose wrong, you will pay the price. If you choose at all, there will still be a price. If you’re silent, the truth will burn up your insides.
The powerful institution or celebrity or boss will say, If you try to hold us accountable, we’ll take everything from you.
His friends will say, If he didn’t do it to me, he didn’t do it to you. Shut up. Go away.
He is the man who cooked for you and let you crash at his place and behaved like a decent fellow.
He’s the man basking in the admiration of millions of social media followers.
Or he is the man who destroyed you.
If you reveal what the monster behind the mask did to you, strangers will speak for him. Apologists, misogynists, attention-seekers will breathe their hate into you like cigarette smoke.
The trick is to ignore it when you can. Give your attention and your spirit to the ones who will stand in front of it and absorb the poison for you, diffuse it, defang it.
Through this journey with The Landing, I’ve learned there’s always someone who will come after you just for opening up and saying, This is what happened to me, and I’ll never be the same because of it.
I’ve also learned there’s always someone who will come with you. Stand by you. I hope we can continue to do that for one another.
You never know who’s standing in front of you holding pain and trauma in a tight fist, fingers curled around it, hiding it, carrying it alone, rallying their courage for the day they’re ready to release it.
And so the man and his apologists will come for you. So what? They are angry and afraid, so they attack. Some of them have very likely practiced similar bad behavior, and they’re scared they’ll be next to face consquences. That is the reason to stand up and shout out. That is why we do this.
A journalist’s job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. If it is ethically, morally and legally sound, I will report on a victim’s attack and name her assailant, because I’m more concerned about the healing of a sexual assault victim than the discomfort of the man who doesn’t want to face the consequences of his behavior.
The best way avoid being outed as a sex pest is to not be one.
None of us can do this alone.
Captain Christine Janning’s court date last week reminded me that a supportive message, a wave, a nod, lending your voice online or in person, will never be taken for granted. We need to have each other’s backs.
I’ll leave you with powerful words from victim/survivor Chanel Miller, whose assailant is still painted in the golden sheen of “swimmer Brock Turner” by media outlets and reporters and editors instead of the slimy muck of what he is: “convicted rapist Brock Turner.”
And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you. As the author Anne Lamott once wrote, “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” Although I can’t save every boat, I hope that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you can’t be silenced, a small satisfaction that justice was served, a small assurance that we are getting somewhere, and a big, big knowing that you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and nobody can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you. —Chanel Miller
About me
I’m an award-winning journalist and bestselling author with decades of international experience writing for magazines and newspapers including People, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, the Sunday Times Magazine (UK), Glamour, Shape, Epicurious.com, and more.
My crime reporting includes the most high-profile cases of the past decades. I’ve been sent to Italy to report on the Amanda Knox case, Portugal to cover Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, London to cover the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, L.A. for the death of Michael Jackson, and Sandy Hook, Conn. to cover the horrific school shooting, to name a few.
My 2021 memoir/military history book The Strong Ones: How a Band of Civilian Women Made Their Mark on the Army was an overnight #1 bestseller on Amazon in 2021. Said former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, “The Strong Ones provides an inspirational message for our times.”
I was the first-ever recipient of the Jane Cunningham Croly Award for Excellence in Journalism Covering Issues of Concern to Women from the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. Winners after me included Marianne Pearl, and judges were legends in journalism like Judy Woodruff. I contributed to the feminist anthology LETTERS OF INTENT (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 1999) alongside such icons as Gloria Steinem, Ntozake Shange and Judy Blume, receiving a noted review from the New York Times. I am the author of a total of 13 fiction and nonfiction books.