For 31 days, we recognized the achievements of women. The rest of the year reflects something else.
What women experience is constant – and too often not talked about for what it is.
We call it sexual misconduct. It sounds clinical. Sanitized. Almost bureaucratic.
It is not neutral. It hides what is actually happening.
What we are talking about is a range of harm.
Rape.
Abuse. Assault. Coercion. Groping. Harassment — including catcalling. Exploitation. Abuse of power. Violations of privacy.
Violence — physical and psychological — inflicted overwhelmingly on women and girls.
Some of it is a violation so profound of one’s body that many never fully recover from the trauma.
Women make up half the population, yet continue to earn less than men and shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid labor – caregiving, managing households, coordinating children’s schooling, meals and activities, and carrying the unseen mental load that keeps daily life functioning.
Ask almost any woman if she has escaped it entirely – the fear, the vigilance. The keys held between fingers in a parking lot. The glance into the back seat. The decision not to walk alone at night.
This is lived experience. And when women speak up, they face disbelief, retaliation and professional consequences. It is hard to come forward. That is why “believe women” is not a slogan; it reflects what it takes to say anything at all.
While men can be victims, the data is clear: The vast majority of sexual violence is committed by men against women. Roughly 90% or more of victims are female.
This is systemic.
Consider the continued release of documents tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor and later faced federal sex trafficking charges before dying in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial.
The records outline a network of powerful associations: Britain’s Prince Andrew; former U.S. President Bill Clinton; Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates; tech billionaire Elon Musk; linguist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky; former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers; author Deepak Chopra; and physician and longevity researcher Peter Attia, among hundreds of others named in the files – a list that remains incomplete.
Appearance in those files does not establish wrongdoing. Many have denied it.
But association is not neutral.
As Miguel de Cervantes wrote: “Tell me what company you keep, and I’ll tell you who you are.”
The people one associates with reflect judgment and tolerance for conduct. If proximity to abuse carries no cost, neither does the abuse.
Allegations involving President Donald Trump have spanned decades and more than two dozen women; he has denied them. In 2023, a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll case. More recent claims tied to Epstein-related materials remain unproven. They should be examined, not dismissed.
Because silence is how this continues.
Former La Plata County Jail Cmdr. Ed Aber has pleaded not guilty to 117 counts of invasion of privacy and one count of official misconduct after allegedly viewing strip-search videos of female inmates more than 3,000 times. Women in custody – entirely under state control – violated by the authority charged with their safety.
That case helped spur Colorado’s HB26-1123, led in part by Rep. Katie Stewart, to strengthen oversight and protections in Colorado jails (Herald, April 2).
Necessary. Not sufficient.
Following credible allegations that César Chávez abused women and girls (Herald, March 20) – including coercion and rape – Colorado lawmakers renamed César Chávez Day as Farm Workers Day, shifting recognition from an individual to a movement.
That is accountability.
But it cannot be selective. We cannot confront abuse in one place and ignore it in another.
There are many good men, and they have a responsibility to speak up – to stand with the women in their lives: coworkers, friends, wives and partners, daughters, family members. But anyone who tolerates this behavior – men or women – who remains in the company of those who commit it, who dismisses it or explains it away, is on the wrong side of the issue, morally and ethically.
Violence against women persists because it is sanitized, excused and tolerated.
Call it what it is. Stop accepting it. Work to change it – and consider carefully the company you keep.
