1
00:08:04,714 --> 00:08:05,865
Thank you.

2
00:08:05,889 --> 00:08:06,905
(Applause)

3
00:08:06,929 --> 00:08:08,198
Thank you, thank you.

4
00:08:08,222 --> 00:08:10,317
(Applause)

5
00:00:01,619 --> 00:00:05,761
For the past few years,
we've been calling men out.

6
00:00:07,103 --> 00:00:08,302
It had to be done.

7
00:00:08,326 --> 00:00:10,278
(Applause)

8
00:00:10,302 --> 00:00:15,646
But lately, I've been thinking
we need to do something even harder.

9
00:00:16,567 --> 00:00:20,149
We need, as my good friend
Tony Porter says,

10
00:00:20,173 --> 00:00:23,889
to find a way to call men in.

11
00:00:25,412 --> 00:00:29,420
My father began to sexually abuse me
when I was five years old.

12
00:00:30,586 --> 00:00:33,681
He would come into my room
in the middle of the night.

13
00:00:33,705 --> 00:00:35,515
He appeared to be in a trance.

14
00:00:36,476 --> 00:00:39,150
The abuse continued until I was 10.

15
00:00:39,846 --> 00:00:42,149
When I tried to resist him,

16
00:00:42,173 --> 00:00:44,960
when I was finally able to say no,

17
00:00:44,984 --> 00:00:46,792
he began to beat me.

18
00:00:46,816 --> 00:00:48,590
He called me stupid.

19
00:00:48,614 --> 00:00:49,974
He said I was a liar.

20
00:00:50,974 --> 00:00:53,705
The sexual abuse ended when I was 10,

21
00:00:53,729 --> 00:00:56,562
but actually, it never ended.

22
00:00:57,531 --> 00:00:59,237
It changed who I was.

23
00:00:59,823 --> 00:01:04,298
I was filled with anxiety and guilt
and shame all the time,

24
00:01:04,322 --> 00:01:06,121
and I didn't know why.

25
00:01:06,145 --> 00:01:09,200
I hated my body, I hated myself,

26
00:01:09,224 --> 00:01:10,970
I got sick a lot,

27
00:01:10,994 --> 00:01:12,300
I couldn't think,

28
00:01:12,324 --> 00:01:13,946
I couldn't remember things.

29
00:01:14,343 --> 00:01:17,545
I was drawn to dangerous men and women

30
00:01:17,569 --> 00:01:22,438
who I allowed -- actually, I invited --
to treat me badly,

31
00:01:22,462 --> 00:01:25,276
because that is what my father
taught me love was.

32
00:01:26,708 --> 00:01:31,237
I waited my whole life
for my father to apologize to me.

33
00:01:32,118 --> 00:01:33,470
He didn't.

34
00:01:33,494 --> 00:01:35,009
He wouldn't.

35
00:01:35,033 --> 00:01:37,794
And then, with the recent
scandals of famous men,

36
00:01:37,818 --> 00:01:41,207
as one after another was exposed,

37
00:01:41,231 --> 00:01:42,381
I realized something:

38
00:01:43,481 --> 00:01:46,536
I have never heard a man

39
00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:50,758
who has committed rape
or physical violence

40
00:01:50,782 --> 00:01:54,838
ever publicly apologize to his victim.

41
00:01:56,294 --> 00:01:58,116
I began to wonder,

42
00:01:58,140 --> 00:02:03,360
what would an authentic,
deep apology be like?

43
00:02:08,179 --> 00:02:11,702
So, something strange began to happen.

44
00:02:12,404 --> 00:02:14,282
I began to write,

45
00:02:14,306 --> 00:02:17,290
and my father's voice
began to come through me.

46
00:02:18,235 --> 00:02:20,782
He began to tell me what he had done

47
00:02:20,806 --> 00:02:22,245
and why.

48
00:02:22,269 --> 00:02:25,104
He began to apologize.

49
00:02:25,128 --> 00:02:27,589
My father is dead almost 31 years,

50
00:02:27,613 --> 00:02:29,361
and yet, in this apology,

51
00:02:29,385 --> 00:02:31,977
the one I had to write for him,

52
00:02:32,001 --> 00:02:36,486
I discovered the power of an apology

53
00:02:36,510 --> 00:02:39,241
and how it actually might be
the way to move forward

54
00:02:39,265 --> 00:02:41,364
in the crisis we now face

55
00:02:41,388 --> 00:02:44,414
with men and all the women they abuse.

56
00:02:45,196 --> 00:02:48,966
Apology is a sacred commitment.

57
00:02:49,798 --> 00:02:52,061
It requires complete honesty.

58
00:02:52,719 --> 00:02:55,948
It demands deep
self-interrogation and time.

59
00:02:55,972 --> 00:02:57,671
It cannot be rushed.

60
00:02:58,052 --> 00:03:01,140
I discovered an apology has four steps,

61
00:03:01,164 --> 00:03:04,133
and, if you would,
I'd like to take you through them.

62
00:03:04,157 --> 00:03:07,989
The first is you have to say
what, in detail, you did.

63
00:03:08,858 --> 00:03:10,807
Your accounting cannot be vague.

64
00:03:11,236 --> 00:03:12,682
"I'm sorry if I hurt you"

65
00:03:12,706 --> 00:03:14,707
or "I'm sorry if I sexually abused you"

66
00:03:14,731 --> 00:03:16,049
doesn't cut it.

67
00:03:16,350 --> 00:03:19,474
You have to say what actually happened.

68
00:03:20,351 --> 00:03:22,676
"I came into the room
in the middle of the night,

69
00:03:22,700 --> 00:03:25,074
and I pulled your underpants down."

70
00:03:25,810 --> 00:03:27,921
"I belittled you because
I was jealous of you

71
00:03:27,945 --> 00:03:30,349
and I wanted you to feel less."

72
00:03:30,373 --> 00:03:33,358
The liberation is in the details.

73
00:03:34,088 --> 00:03:36,930
An apology is a remembering.

74
00:03:36,954 --> 00:03:39,426
It connects the past with the present.

75
00:03:39,450 --> 00:03:42,712
It says that what occurred
actually did occur.

76
00:03:43,838 --> 00:03:48,203
The second step
is you have to ask yourself why.

77
00:03:48,997 --> 00:03:52,019
Survivors are haunted by the why.

78
00:03:52,043 --> 00:03:57,139
Why? Why would my father want
to sexually abuse his eldest daughter?

79
00:03:57,163 --> 00:04:00,535
Why would he take my head
and smash it against a wall?

80
00:04:03,565 --> 00:04:05,668
In my father's case,

81
00:04:05,692 --> 00:04:09,666
he was a child born long after
the other children.

82
00:04:10,671 --> 00:04:14,020
He was an accident
that became "the miracle."

83
00:04:14,495 --> 00:04:18,090
He was adored and treated
as the golden boy.

84
00:04:18,714 --> 00:04:21,774
But adoration, it turns out, is not love.

85
00:04:22,410 --> 00:04:23,863
Adoration is a projection

86
00:04:23,887 --> 00:04:26,157
of someone's need for you to be perfect

87
00:04:26,181 --> 00:04:27,331
onto you.

88
00:04:27,788 --> 00:04:30,731
My father had to live up
to this impossible ideal,

89
00:04:30,755 --> 00:04:33,029
and so he was never allowed to be himself.

90
00:04:33,441 --> 00:04:35,502
He was never allowed to express tenderness

91
00:04:35,526 --> 00:04:38,759
or vulnerability, curiosity, doubt.

92
00:04:38,783 --> 00:04:40,999
He was never allowed to cry.

93
00:04:41,023 --> 00:04:44,187
And so he was forced to push
all those feelings underground,

94
00:04:44,211 --> 00:04:47,100
and they eventually metastasized.

95
00:04:47,124 --> 00:04:51,295
Those suppressed feelings
later became Shadowman,

96
00:04:51,319 --> 00:04:52,963
and he was out of control,

97
00:04:52,987 --> 00:04:56,549
and he eventually unleashed
his torrent on me.

98
00:04:58,215 --> 00:05:02,215
The third step is you have
to open your heart

99
00:05:02,239 --> 00:05:06,263
and feel what your victim felt
as you were abusing her.

100
00:05:07,072 --> 00:05:09,032
You have to let your heart break.

101
00:05:09,056 --> 00:05:11,204
You have to feel the horror and betrayal

102
00:05:11,228 --> 00:05:15,270
and the long-term impacts
of your abuse on your victim.

103
00:05:15,883 --> 00:05:19,167
You have to sit with the suffering
you have caused.

104
00:05:19,729 --> 00:05:21,373
And, of course, the fourth step

105
00:05:21,397 --> 00:05:24,594
is taking responsibility
for what you have done

106
00:05:24,618 --> 00:05:26,529
and making amends.

107
00:05:26,977 --> 00:05:32,474
So, why would anyone want to go through
such a grueling and humbling process?

108
00:05:32,982 --> 00:05:35,721
Why would you want to rip yourself open?

109
00:05:36,636 --> 00:05:40,829
Because it is the only thing
that will set yourself free.

110
00:05:40,853 --> 00:05:44,540
It is the only thing
that will set your victim free.

111
00:05:44,564 --> 00:05:47,384
You didn't just destroy your victim.

112
00:05:47,408 --> 00:05:49,455
You destroyed yourself.

113
00:05:49,479 --> 00:05:53,606
There is no one who enacts
violence on another person

114
00:05:53,630 --> 00:05:56,495
who doesn't suffer
from the effects themselves.

115
00:05:57,348 --> 00:06:03,988
It creates an incredibly dark
and contaminating spirit,

116
00:06:04,012 --> 00:06:06,411
and it spreads
throughout your entire life.

117
00:06:07,962 --> 00:06:10,732
The apology I wrote -- I learned something

118
00:06:10,756 --> 00:06:13,156
about a different lens
we have to look through

119
00:06:13,180 --> 00:06:16,203
to understand the problem
of men's violence

120
00:06:16,227 --> 00:06:20,121
that I and one billion
other women have survived.

121
00:06:20,438 --> 00:06:22,600
We often turn to punishment first.

122
00:06:23,576 --> 00:06:26,000
It's our first instinct, but actually,

123
00:06:26,024 --> 00:06:30,440
although punishment
sometimes is effective,

124
00:06:30,464 --> 00:06:32,714
on its own, it is not enough.

125
00:06:32,738 --> 00:06:34,285
My father punished me.

126
00:06:34,849 --> 00:06:36,076
I was shut down,

127
00:06:36,100 --> 00:06:38,051
and I was broken.

128
00:06:38,587 --> 00:06:42,142
I think punishment hardens us,
but it doesn't teach us.

129
00:06:42,166 --> 00:06:44,604
Humiliation is not revelation.

130
00:06:45,334 --> 00:06:50,190
We actually need to create a process
that may involve punishment,

131
00:06:50,214 --> 00:06:52,529
whereby we open a doorway

132
00:06:52,553 --> 00:06:57,293
where men can actually become
something and someone else.

133
00:06:57,847 --> 00:07:00,232
For so many years, I hated my father.

134
00:07:00,256 --> 00:07:03,234
I wanted him dead. I wanted him in prison.

135
00:07:03,258 --> 00:07:07,085
But actually, that rage kept me
connected to my father's story.

136
00:07:08,086 --> 00:07:12,657
What I really wanted
wasn't just for my father to be stopped.

137
00:07:12,681 --> 00:07:14,253
I wanted him to change.

138
00:07:14,277 --> 00:07:16,157
I wanted him to apologize.

139
00:07:16,181 --> 00:07:17,515
That's what we want.

140
00:07:17,871 --> 00:07:20,172
We don't want men to be destroyed,

141
00:07:20,196 --> 00:07:22,950
we don't want them to only be punished.

142
00:07:22,974 --> 00:07:27,632
We want them to see us,
the victims that they have harmed,

143
00:07:27,656 --> 00:07:29,651
and we want them to repent

144
00:07:29,675 --> 00:07:31,120
and change.

145
00:07:31,425 --> 00:07:33,449
And I actually believe this is possible.

146
00:07:34,474 --> 00:07:37,288
And I really believe it's our way forward.

147
00:07:37,928 --> 00:07:40,777
But we need men to join us.

148
00:07:41,354 --> 00:07:46,629
We need men now to be brave
and be part of this transformation.

149
00:07:47,677 --> 00:07:51,376
I have spent most of my life
calling men out,

150
00:07:52,344 --> 00:07:54,070
and I am here now,

151
00:07:55,336 --> 00:07:56,527
right now,

152
00:07:57,049 --> 00:07:59,517
to call you in.

153
00:08:01,104 --> 00:08:02,256
Thank you.

154
00:08:02,280 --> 00:08:04,690
(Applause)