Agreed. One of the commenters here, a woman, said “I wasn’t sexually abused,” and I was stunned to hear my own knee-jerk reaction: “Wait, you weren’t? Is that even possible?” Sad, that I take it for granted that every woman has been sexually assaulted at some point. I wonder how many of us assume the same?

I think some of the male-female dynamics are changing now, though. It seems like feminism comes in waves: with one wave it was the vote. With another it was enabling women work outside the home. In the next it was normalizing women’s sexuality. This time, it’s…well, maybe it won’t be obvious what’s happening until we’re looking at it in retrospect. But it seems to be something around women’s (and teenagers’, too) voices being heard and respected.

When we lay out an outfit — socks, shoes, pants, undies, shirt, bra — we don’t don it all in one fell swoop. It’s one piece at a time. At this point, maybe we’re donning our giant hoop earrings.

Or maybe we’re taking them off; passing them to our girls. “Here, hold these. I got an ass to kick.”

Thank you, Amanda Ryan, for your words. Both here and on your Medium page. We need your work, your voice. I’ll hold your hoops.