300: Jaclyn Friedman on believing women

tl;dr Jaclyn Friedman on believing women, what happens when we disclose our trauma, and why our PERCEPTION of who is a victim impacts how we view all victims. We're talking about her new book with Jessica Valenti, "Believe Me".

Explore More Summit is happening NEXT WEEK. Grab your free ticket by registering today for this free, entirely online conference that happens April 20-29th featuring 28 delicious, timely, intimate talks. Head to exploremoresummit.com now!

Finally, Patrons who support at $3 and above, this week you get to hear a bonus chat between Jaclyn Friedman and I on Tina Horn's fantastic essay speaking to why pleasure should not be the measure for sex work and porn performers. It's SOOOO good and super important for folks who truly want to support those in the field. Hear it at patreon.com/sgrpodcast.

I love every time I get to be in conversation with Jaclyn, and this was no different.

We explore the difference between what it means to believe women versus what it means to believe ALL women, and why that distinction is important.

We dive into what it means that women, femmes, and feminized folks often have a different set of memories than cis men. The ways survivors are retraumatized by courts, lawyers, and our "justice" system.

So much of "Believe Me" demonstrates the ways we would all move closer to liberation if we centered Black women and trans women, and we explore all the ways so many of us are only trusted if we disclose the gory details of our trauma but in doing so we are also seen as discredited and no longer experts in anything except our trauma.

Jaclyn shares what social researchers have long demonstrated: that collectively we not only hold women to much higher standards, but as a woman's credibility goes up, we like her less for it and actively punish her for that growing credibility.

So what can we do about it? Where do we go?

It's such an important discussion about a very important book, and I hope you'll get yourself a copy.

Be sure to send in your questions! I would love to hear from you. Use the contact form at dawnserra.com.

Follow Sex Gets Real on Twitter and Facebook and Dawn is on Instagram.

About Jaclyn Friedman:

Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, educator and activist, and creator of four books Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (one of Publishers’ Weekly’s Top 100 Books o