JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
All this week, we have been telling you the story about a woman at Cornell University who says she was gang raped.
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
It's an extremely controversial story, especially as new details keep becoming public, and it's also a very sadly common story.
SUMMERS: An alleged assault, a woman harmed, questions about systems and institutions.
PFEIFFER: Also questions about what justice looks like. Sometimes justice feels sufficient to some people and totally inadequate to others.
SUMMERS: So we talked with several women who write and think about feminism about this moment.
PFEIFFER: Soraya Chemaly, an activist and the author of "All We Want Is Everything," Jessica Valenti, whose landmark anthology is called "Yes Means Yes!"...
SUMMERS: Carmen Maria Machado, who wrote the bestselling memoir "In The Dream House," and Jennifer Weiner, author most recently of "The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits."
PFEIFFER: Here's what they told us.
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JENNIFER WEINER: Oh, boy, how am I feeling in this moment right now? I am sad and I am angry, and I am tired.
CARMEN MARIA MACHADO: It just feels so overwhelming. I'm now getting - like, people are sharing their own stories, and I've also, like, been feeling my own my own history of sexual violence, sort of, like, bubbling up. And so I do feel like I've been getting just this, like, really intense but, like, necessary sort of avalanche of, like, sensation and feeling and pain that's, like, coming from everybody.
JESSICA VALENTI: I feel scared and distressed. I find this really terrifying. I find it terrifying that we've had the tools and the language and the resources we need to talk about this issue and to stop sexual assaults and to help victims for decades. And yet, very little seems to have changed.
SORAYA CHEMALY: What you're seeing online in the torrent of content that is being produced is, you know, woman after woman after woman after woman, in effect, saying no more.
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VALENTI: The fact that we're still having these conversations that really are about victim blaming or what consent means - you know, like, we were talking about this years ago.
MACHADO: I've been thinking a lot about how many people, like, got those texts and sort of knew what was going on and, like, didn't say anything. And so I'm thinking not just about the men who did this, but also the men who didn't say anything.
VALENTI: I remember writing about the fact that one of the most common punishments for campus rapists was writing a research paper or a letter of apology to their victim. And I wrote that, you know, like, maybe 15 years ago. So these are conversations that we've been having for a tremendously long time.
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WEINER: Four weeks ago, I dropped my daughter off to start college. And you don't want to scare her. You don't want to make your kid feel like she's heading into, like, a house of horrors, but on the other hand, you want her to be careful and aware and watching out for her friends. But, boy, like, I would so much rather have been, you know, picking out posters for her dorm room and talking about, like, how many towels she actually needed.
VALENTI: You know, I have a 16-year-old daughter, and so it definitely has sparked conversations with her. I think I've been struck by how unsurprised she and her friends are by this. I think that that is part of what is driving a lot of the anger, too.
CHEMALY: I'm having conversations with friends and family. I'm also having a lot of conversations with other writers, other activists, advocates. Women are living with a double, triple consciousness. They're going through their daily lives with the awareness of this case and other cases, and the people around them often are men and maybe men that they like and trust or are in relationships with. And unfortunately, too many of those men don't want to know.
VALENTI: You know, like, we're in a moment when women's rights are being rolled back across the board. I think sexual assault has always been something that people are angry about and are interested in. But in a moment when half the country doesn't have the right to abortion, it takes on new meaning.
MACHADO: You know, I try not to be, like, fatalistic about misogyny 'cause I'm like - I want to believe in a better world, you know, for not just me but, like, the people coming after me. And, you know, my - I have nephews and nieces, and I - you know, I have, like, people in my life with kids. And I'm like, yeah, I want this world to be better for them.
CHEMALY: You know, I'm not like the resident optimist (laughter) in any circle. However, however, I say that because, in fact - I truly believe this - I think we have a refusal generation. We have a generation of women who are going about the business of quietly, systematically refusing these terms.
VALENTI: I do try to focus on how glad I am that young women aren't just accepting this as a given, that they see it as outrageous, that they see it as unacceptable and that they're not willing to just sort of shut up about it.
SUMMERS: That was Jessica Valenti, Soraya Chemaly, Carmen Maria Machado and Jennifer Weiner.
PFEIFFER: And please keep in mind that there is a national sexual assault hotline. To reach it, text the word hope to 64673.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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