By Sarah Hall
Editor
These days, Breanna Stewart is unstoppable.
The Seattle Storm power forward was the first pick in the 2016 WNBA draft. She has four NCAA championships under her belt, plus a shelf full of awards, including WNBA Rookie of the Year, Naismith Trophy Winner, Wade Trophy Winner, John R. Wooden Award Winner, AAC Player of the Year and Final Four Most Outstanding Player. She is the only athlete in NCAA history to be named Associated Press Player of the Year three times, as well as the only athlete in NCAA history to be named Final Four Most Outstanding Player honor four times. And none of those honors even count her record-breaking stint at Cicero-North Syracuse High School.
But once, Stewart was a shy, skinny 9-year-old who felt like she didn’t fit in her body. And as she revealed in a post last week on The Players’ Tribune, someone took advantage of those insecurities:
The TV would flicker, and everything would be quiet. “It’s O.K.,” he’d say. He’d touch me and try to get me to touch him.
Sometimes I would try to pull my arm away, but I wasn’t as strong. I was just a kid.
There was always that smell — cigarettes and dirt.
I wouldn’t make any noise. No one else knew it was happening.
You know those dreams where you try to run but your body won’t move? That was me: paralyzed, silent.
Sometimes I wondered what would happen if I just yelled out. Anything.
A name.
“Stop!’”
Or what if someone just happened to wake up?
It wouldn’t always happen at night. Sometimes I’d be off from school and it would happen in broad daylight.
He’d always find a way to be near me in public. It was subtle — he’d sit next to me at a table, or, when no one was watching, he’d try to touch my butt. Things only I would notice.
But the nighttime….
I’d wait for those steps to creak. Or he’d be there, sitting next to me on the couch, waiting in the light of the TV.
The abuse, perpetrated by a relative, went on for two years before Stewart, then just 11, was able to tell her parents. The relative was arrested and confessed; Stewart writes about how she’s blocked out many of the memories from that time, “ like a Ctrl+Alt+Delete for anything that hurts too much.” She shares how she found an escape in basketball, going to practice the same night her abuser was picked up by police.
And she shares what inspired her to speak publicly about her experience now:
Every time I tell someone, I feel a little more unburdened. I wish it was as simple as saying that it’s just something that happened to me. Part of it is just that simple — it literally is something that happened. But I don’t know why it happened. I don’t know why this happens. Or why sexual abuse keeps happening.
I do know that I’m doing something completely outside of myself by writing this. In fact, this is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done and will ever do. But I was recently reading McKayla Maroney’s personal account of sexual abuse — one of many powerful stories the #metoo campaign has inspired — and I felt … less alone.
Maybe that’s the point. Our experiences are different. How we cope is different. But our voices matter.
I also thought about what my dad has said to me more than once:
“It’s not a dirty little secret. When you’re comfortable with it, and when you’re comfortable being open about it, you could save someone’s life.”
That’s why I’m writing this. This is bigger than me.
Support for survivors
With the recent revelations of sexual abuse and harassment by both women and men against such big names as Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, among others, more and more people are speaking out about their own experiences — and not just famous athletes and Hollywood stars. The #metoo campaign, popularized by actress Alyssa Milano on Twitter, prompted stories from thousands of people on social media.
“What we’re seeing now is people recognizing that some of the things that they’ve experienced was not okay — it wasn’t okay then and it isn’t okay now, and now we’re in an environment where people are feeling encouraged, if you will, to speak their truth,” George Kilpatrick, Vera House’s men’s outreach program coordinator. “For some, they never tell anybody, and so that they’re feeling that they can actually see their truth be spoken and see action being taken against alleged perpetrators. Their voices are starting to be heard and they’re starting to be believed.”
Kilpatrick said that, while the domestic and sexual violence agency doesn’t have hard data on whether they’ve received more calls for support since the #metoo campaign started trending, it has made the staff more aware of the role they play in prevention education.
“One of the things that we also know is that the more information that people have, the better decisions that they can make and the more aware that they are about the environment that they’re in,” he said. “We go out to not only elementary schools, but middle schools and high schools, community-based organizations, corporations everywhere, to give them information, because if we don’t raise awareness, if we don’t give people information or to tell them what a healthy relationship looks like, what safe touch is for young people and that there are some misconceptions and stereotypes for who sexually abuses people, we’re doing a great disservice.”
In addition, the agency provides counseling for sexual assault victims, as well as a confidential, 24-hour crisis line people can call if they feel they’re not safe in their immediate situation: (315) 468-3260.
The most important part of education, Kilpatrick said, is the role it plays in changing the culture that has allowed sexual harassment and abuse to flourish for so long.
“Part of the reason why this has been able to persist so long… is because many of us aware of these things happening within our society didn’t say anything,” he said. “It’s the fact that we were in an environment that allowed this to occur, that it actually was able to spread and to grow. But now, hopefully, where people are more aware, they’ll have a second look.”
While we’re on the right track, Kilpatrick said that cultural shift is still a long ways off. He pointed to the allegations made by Anita Hill against Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court.
“We had a moment then, but then nothing changed,” he said. “It’s all around us and it’s going take a lot more than this moment to have any sustained cultural shift.”
That said, this moment does present society with an opportunity to create real change.
“I think the real issue here is that we have to hold ourselves, our community, our businesses, our educational institutions to a higher standard,” Kilpatrick said. “And unless all of us together collectively are willing to change a culture that tolerates sexual violence, we’re going to continue to read about this for years and years to come, but we have an opportunity now to challenge ideas, behaviors, and other actions that create or support sexual violence and rape culture, for that matter.”
The Star-Review reached out to Breanna Stewart’s representatives to request an interview but received no response.
