To Every Jane Doe Watching
On the people who failed her, the strangers who showed up, and raising our children to be the helpers
Photo by Dina Badamshina on Unsplash
*This piece discusses sexual assault and may be difficult for some readers.*
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Jane Doe.
Not because I know every detail of what happened.
Not because I have anything to add to the legal questions surrounding her case.
I keep thinking about her because she is sharing the worst day of her life with the world.
And while she is doing that, strangers are showing up.
They are saying:
We see you.
We’re listening.
We’re here for you.
We’re in your corner.
You matter.
That has moved me more than I expected.
Because stories like this can make it very easy to lose faith in people. They can make the world feel frightening and indifferent. They can make you wonder whether anyone is paying attention, whether anyone will take a woman seriously when she says something terrible happened to her, and whether speaking up will make any difference at all.
But over the past several days, I’ve watched people pay attention.
I’ve watched people demand answers.
I’ve watched people insist on accountability from the people and institutions whose actions are now under scrutiny.
I’ve watched social media do what it can do at its best: bring people together around a shared understanding that something matters and that silence is not acceptable.
There is power in that.
There is something deeply human about strangers gathering around someone they have never met and saying, You are not alone in this.
I am not an investigator, an attorney or a judge, and I am not going to pretend I can determine legal responsibility from what I have read in the news.
But I also don’t want that caution to be mistaken for neutrality about what has been described.
I am repulsed by it.
By the allegations against the men involved. By the ways this young woman appears to have been failed by people and systems that should have protected her. By the idea that a young woman could come forward after something so devastating and then find herself carrying not only what happened to her, but the weight of everything that followed.
There should be accountability when people harm women. And there should be accountability when institutions entrusted with their safety fail them.
The courts will determine the legal questions. But I don’t need to know the outcome of every legal proceeding to know that when a young woman says she has been hurt, what happens next matters enormously.
She deserved to be protected. She deserved to be taken seriously. And she deserved better than what followed.
There are so many moments in what has been publicly described when someone appears to have had an opportunity to do better.
Someone could have protected her.
Someone could have spoken up.
Someone could have taken her seriously.
Someone could have decided that protecting a young woman mattered more than protecting a person, a reputation or an institution.
And that is the part I find so difficult to stomach.
Because whatever accountability ultimately comes through the legal system, there is a more basic human question underneath all of this:
When someone vulnerable needed people to do the right thing, who did?
And maybe that is part of why the response from complete strangers has affected me so deeply.
Whatever the legal process ultimately determines, it is difficult for me to read what has been reported about this case and not see a young woman who deserved more protection, more care and more people willing to step in.
And now thousands of people who have no obligation to her at all are choosing to show up anyway.
They are refusing to look away.
They are asking questions.
They are demanding accountability.
They are reminding her that she is not alone.
There is something incredibly hopeful about that.
Because somewhere underneath the headlines, statements and public debate is a young woman.
And I keep thinking about what it must feel like to have one of the most painful experiences of your life discussed publicly.
To have strangers debating your choices.
Your memory.
Your drinking.
Your body.
Your words.
Your credibility.
To know that people who have never met you are talking about one of the worst nights of your life over dinner tables, on television, in comment sections and across social media.
And still, in the middle of all that noise, there are people trying to make sure she hears something else.
We see you.
We’re listening.
You matter.
That is what I hope she feels.
Not just the scrutiny.
Not just the questions.
Not just the parts of the story that strangers want to analyze.
I hope she feels the people standing beside her.
The people saying that what happened to her matters.
That her voice matters.
That she matters.
And I keep thinking about all the other Jane Does watching.
The women who never reported.
The women who aren’t sure what happened to them “counts.”
The women who spent years convincing themselves it wasn’t that bad.
The women who were drunk.
The women who froze.
The women who went along with something at first and then wanted it to stop.
The women who didn’t scream.
The women who didn’t fight.
The women who didn’t have the words for what happened until much later.
The women who told someone and weren’t taken seriously.
And the women who never told anyone at all.
I wonder what they’re hearing as they watch this unfold.
I hope they’re hearing that people are paying attention.
I hope they’re hearing that they deserve compassion.
I hope they’re hearing that they do not have to carry everything alone.
And I hope another woman watching this understands that if she wants to speak, there are people willing to listen.
And if she isn’t ready—or never chooses—to tell her story publicly, I hope she understands that doesn’t make what happened to her matter any less.
There is no obligation to share your worst moment with the world in order for it to matter.
But for the woman wondering whether anyone would care if she did speak, I hope she sees what is happening around this Jane Doe and finds some hope there.
Because stories like this don’t happen in isolation.
People are watching how we respond.
Young women are watching.
Survivors are watching.
And our children are watching, too.
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I think that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about as a mother.
I have a baby boy now.
Right now, Henry is still very much a baby.
He has chubby little hands and a gummy smile. He crawls around our house and pulls himself up on furniture and looks for me when he needs comfort.
But someday he won’t be a baby.
Someday I’m going to send a young man out into the world.
And lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what exactly my responsibility is in getting him there.
Of course I want Henry to be kind.
I want him to be respectful.
I want him to be a good friend and a good partner and someday, if he chooses, a good husband and father.
But I think our responsibility as parents has to go further than simply teaching our sons not to hurt women.
I want my son to understand consent.
I want him to understand that someone’s vulnerability is never an opportunity.
I want him to respect women not because they’re someone’s daughter or someone’s sister or someday someone’s wife.
I want him to respect women because they’re human beings.
And I want him to understand that sometimes being a good man requires more than simply not participating in something wrong.
Sometimes it means saying:
Stop.
Sometimes it means leaving the group.
Getting help.
Risking your popularity.
Being the person who ruins the joke.
Not laughing at the text.
Not forwarding the picture.
Not staying silent because speaking up would be uncomfortable.
I don’t want to raise a son who can someday say, “Well, I didn’t do anything.”
I want to raise one who understands that sometimes doing nothing isn’t enough.
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And then there is my daughter.
I have a daughter I desperately want this world to protect.
And I have a son I have the responsibility of teaching how to move through that world.
That duality feels enormous sometimes.
Because I can’t control every room Charlotte will someday walk into.
I can’t control every person she’ll meet.
I can’t make every decision for her.
I can’t guarantee that she’ll never find herself in a situation that scares me.
God, I wish I could.
And I can’t control every room Henry will someday walk into either.
But I can help shape the person he becomes when he gets there.
That’s the job.
We’re not just raising babies.
We’re raising the adults they’ll become.
And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I don’t just want to raise children who know right from wrong.
I want to raise children who are willing to do something when they see the difference.
We tell children that when something scary happens, they should look for the helpers.
I still believe that.
But now that I am raising two children of my own, I realize my responsibility goes further.
I don’t just want Charlotte and Henry to know how to look for the helpers.
I want to raise them to become them.
I want them to be the person who notices.
The person who says stop.
The person who gets help.
The person who checks on the person everyone else walked past.
The person willing to make the room uncomfortable because something happening in it is wrong.
The person who understands that being good is about more than simply being able to say, “I wasn’t the one who did it.”
Because sometimes goodness asks more of us than that.
Sometimes it requires us to step toward someone else’s pain instead of away from it.
To interject.
To speak.
To help.
To refuse to let fear of embarrassment or discomfort become an excuse for silence.
I want my children to know how to find the helpers when they need them.
But God, I also hope I raise them to be the helpers when someone else does.
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There are terrible things in this world.
What has been described in Jane Doe’s story is a painful reminder of that.
But there is also this.
A woman sharing something painful, and strangers refusing to let her face it alone.
People using their voices to demand answers.
People refusing to allow uncomfortable questions to disappear simply because looking away would be easier.
People saying, again and again:
“We are paying attention.”
“We want answers.”
“We care what happened to you.”
“We are here.”
That has restored something in me.
A renewed sense of trust in the public good.
A reminder that people are capable of gathering around someone else’s pain without needing to know her personally.
A reminder that compassion can travel through a screen.
That solidarity can come from strangers.
That sometimes the public can be more than an audience.
Sometimes it can be a chorus.
And right now, that chorus is saying to Jane Doe:
We see you.
We’re here for you.
We’re in your corner.
You matter.
That matters, too.
Especially because somewhere there may be another young woman watching.
Someone who hasn’t told anyone yet.
Someone who thinks nobody will take her seriously.
Someone who believes what happened to her wasn’t bad enough to matter.
Someone wondering whether speaking will make any difference at all.
I hope she sees people showing up for this Jane Doe and understands something:
Your voice matters, too.
If you choose to use it, there are people willing to listen.
And whether you ever tell the world or not, what happened to you still matters.
I hope my daughter grows up in a world that keeps getting better at saying that.
And I hope my son grows up understanding that he has a responsibility to help make that world.
Because despite everything, I still want to believe there is more good in this world than bad.
And lately, I feel a little more certain that there is.
Not because terrible things don’t happen.
Clearly, they do.
Not because the world is always fair.
It isn’t.
But because even after people fail one another, I keep seeing other people choose to show up.
They refuse to look away.
They ask questions.
They offer compassion.
They demand better.
They help.
And maybe that’s what I’m holding onto most.
We cannot always stop terrible things from happening.
But we can decide what kind of people we are when they do.
We can decide whether we look away or step closer.
Whether we stay quiet or speak.
Whether we wait for somebody else to help or realize that maybe, this time, we are the helpers.
Because maybe the best way to prove our faith in humanity isn’t by saying we have it.
Maybe it’s by showing up for one another when it matters most.
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If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, support is available through the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or through RAINN’s confidential online support services.