I do understand when people don’t want to put themselves in harms way or risk their life, but that’s a minority of the situations. Most of the time you can speak up and say it’s fucked up.

And the impact of outreach is really understated, and quite safe. I still remember how my perception of “well how was she dressed?” was totally shattered – some college students, men, were talking to us in high school, and they told us to think it through. No one goes “oh she’s showing a lot of her skin, I think I’ll rape her”. It’s so obvious in retrospect, but those guys really opened my eyes.

All I ask is for people to try and be better. It takes time and a lot of it is confronting yourself.

Exactly. I haven’t been perfect on this. I didn’t understand the #yesallwomen thing several years ago, and was hung up on “yeah but it’s not like all guys are bad”, until my sister really broke it down for me and explained her own experiences.

I’ve said terrible things out of insecurity and jealousy before, and my friends made it clear that yeah it was fucked for me to say, but it was important to recognize it and move past it. I didn’t have to feel guilty forever, but the important part was understanding that what I did was not okay. And that really helped me learn from my mistakes without feeling burdened by them. It’s a learning process, but you have to surround yourself with good people who’ll call you out and guide you if you screw up.