Emily Chang Quotes

I've heard many women say that they were afraid to come out or they were too ashamed to talk about it because they thought it was something they had done to promote the man to sexually harass them - and that is not the case.

It's not lost on me that every single person who told their story about Harvey Weinstein talked about how they were silenced, how they were encouraged not to speak up, how they were embarrassed or ashamed to speak up.

I was part of a growing community of women who were secretly dealing with harassment by Harvey Weinstein. But I also did not know that there was a world in which anybody would care about my experience with him.

I wasn't naive, but at the end of my Miss America year, when two different executives attacked me during what I thought were informational interviews about jobs, I was shocked. I didn't see it coming, and the worst thing about it was the shame I felt, as if I'd done something wrong.

I haven't faced a casting couch in the South or Bollywood. But yes, I have faced my share of harassment in both industries. I don't have the guts to name them because they are powerful people - men and women who made sure I felt helpless.

It is difficult to have the guts to speak up about any kind of sexual assault.

That's the thing about abuse - it can make the victim feel an overwhelming sense of shame, a shame so disabling that one suffers in silence.

If someone has behaved badly with a woman. and she hasn't spoken about it for ten, 20, or 30 years, it's her prerogative when she wants to speak.

Let's suppose somebody abused you sexually. You still had a choice, though not a good one, about what to tell yourself about the abuse.

Guilt is one side of a nasty triangle; the other two are shame and stigma. This grim coalition combines to inculpate women themselves of the crimes committed against them.

I think I wanted to write a book about the relationship between the victim and perpetrator in which the victim agrees to remain silent.

It takes one second to ruin a woman's life.

Rape has been normalized. Rape is in our culture. Gender based violence is part of our whole patriarchal culture. It happens all the time…. There is silence because of fear, because the perpetrator has the power one way or the other/

The MeToo movement has made everyone more professional. The trashy aspects of filmmaking are now eliminated. There is certainly fear and caution among those men who think they can get away with any behaviour. At the same time, we have to be careful about not overdoing the enthusiasm of the MeToo movement.

Most women who go public with #MeToo stories are fearful for obvious reasons. There is the pain of reliving traumatic experiences. There is the rage of not being believed.

A lot of people who have experienced trauma at the hands of people they've trusted take responsibility, and that is what's toxic.

I might be one of the very few people in this industry who doesn't have a 'me too' story.

The biggest part of what Anita Hill did was take away the stigma of coming forward, and it took a lot for her to do that. We don't have these conversations, because of the fear that people won't believe you or you'll get attacked if you come forward. She came forward anyway and continued to tell her story.

I have since talked to some of my girlfriends sexual assault and found out that they had their own experiences that they never shared at the time. It was never talked about it. And I think it's because of that normal response - you feel badly, you feel responsible, you feel guilty, you feel like you did something wrong, you feel ashamed.

The moment that I realized my name was going to be said in the same sentence as children and sex, that's really intense. That's something I knew from that very moment, whatever happens past that point, something's out there in the air that is really bad.

May God forgive us for the times when we as individuals and as a Church failed to seek out and care for those little ones who were frightened, alone and in pain because someone was abusing them. That we did not always respond to your cries with the concern of the Good Shepherd is a matter of deep shame.

Meet them once and you're innocent; meet them twice and you're not. So if you see me having drinks again with Harvey Weinstein then, okay, you've got me.

I finally figured out what my crime was. I lived. Big mistake.

To deal with the stark reality of having hit or hurt a woman or child, to deal with the initial responsibility you have not to do that and the knowledge you did do it, can be incredibly hard.

Letterman, despite whatever idiotic (or worse?) things he may have done with women on his staff, was wise enough to realize that silence isn't permanent and peace of mind can't be bought.