In medical school I made a difference.
I was with two women and two men from class. We'd had a lecture on rape that day. One of the guys piped up, "If I were a woman and I was raped, I'd never tell anyone."
"Man, I don't feel that way." I said, "I would have the legal evidence done, have the police on his ass so fast his head would spin and I would nail his hide to the wall."
He looked at me in surprise. "Um, wow. Why?"
I took a deep breath and decided to answer. "You are assuming that you would be ashamed and that as a woman, it is somehow your fault if you were raped. I was abused by a neighbor at age 7. At age 7 I thought it was my fault. I thought I might be pregnant, because I was a bit clueless about puberty. I made it stop and tried to keep my sister away from the guy. When I went to the pediatrician the next time with my mother, I decided that since he didn't say I was pregnant, I probably wasn't. When I started school that year, second grade, I thought sadly that I was probably the only girl on the bus who wasn't a virgin.
In college, I heard a radio show about rape victims, how they blame themselves, often think they did something to cause it, are often treated badly by the police or the emergency room, and feel guilty. All of the feelings that I had at age 7. I realized that I was 7, for Christ's sake, I wasn't an adult. It was NOT my fault.
If I walk down the street naked, I'm ok with being arrested for indecency, but rape is violence against me and no one has that right no matter WHAT is happening.
And child sexual abuse is one in four women."
The two guys looked at the three of us. After a long pause, one of the other women shook her head no, and the other nodded yes.
The guy shook his head. "I never believed it. I didn't think women could be okay after that."
"Oh, we can survive and we can heal and thrive."
We had the lecture on child sexual abuse a few months later. My fellow student talked to me later. "I thought about you and --- during the lecture. I thought about it completely differently than before you talked about it. I would deal with a patient in a completely different way than I would have before. Thank you."