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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Thank you, thank you.

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(Applause)

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For the past few years,
we've been calling men out.

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It had to be done.

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(Applause)

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But lately, I've been thinking
we need to do something even harder.

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We need, as my good friend
Tony Porter says,

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to find a way to call men in.

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My father began to sexually abuse me
when I was five years old.

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He would come into my room
in the middle of the night.

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He appeared to be in a trance.

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The abuse continued until I was 10.

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When I tried to resist him,

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when I was finally able to say no,

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he began to beat me.

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He called me stupid.

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He said I was a liar.

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The sexual abuse ended when I was 10,

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but actually, it never ended.

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It changed who I was.

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I was filled with anxiety and guilt
and shame all the time,

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and I didn't know why.

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I hated my body, I hated myself,

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I got sick a lot,

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I couldn't think,

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I couldn't remember things.

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I was drawn to dangerous men and women

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who I allowed -- actually, I invited --
to treat me badly,

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because that is what my father
taught me love was.

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I waited my whole life
for my father to apologize to me.

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He didn't.

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He wouldn't.

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And then, with the recent
scandals of famous men,

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as one after another was exposed,

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I realized something:

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I have never heard a man

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who has committed rape
or physical violence

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ever publicly apologize to his victim.

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I began to wonder,

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what would an authentic,
deep apology be like?

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So, something strange began to happen.

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I began to write,

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and my father's voice
began to come through me.

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He began to tell me what he had done

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and why.

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He began to apologize.

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My father is dead almost 31 years,

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and yet, in this apology,

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the one I had to write for him,

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I discovered the power of an apology

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and how it actually might be
the way to move forward

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in the crisis we now face

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with men and all the women they abuse.

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Apology is a sacred commitment.

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It requires complete honesty.

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It demands deep
self-interrogation and time.

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It cannot be rushed.

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I discovered an apology has four steps,

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and, if you would,
I'd like to take you through them.

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The first is you have to say
what, in detail, you did.

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Your accounting cannot be vague.

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"I'm sorry if I hurt you"

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or "I'm sorry if I sexually abused you"

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doesn't cut it.

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You have to say what actually happened.

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"I came into the room
in the middle of the night,

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and I pulled your underpants down."

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"I belittled you because
I was jealous of you

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and I wanted you to feel less."

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The liberation is in the details.

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An apology is a remembering.

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It connects the past with the present.

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It says that what occurred
actually did occur.

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The second step
is you have to ask yourself why.

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Survivors are haunted by the why.

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Why? Why would my father want
to sexually abuse his eldest daughter?

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Why would he take my head
and smash it against a wall?

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In my father's case,

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he was a child born long after
the other children.

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He was an accident
that became "the miracle."

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He was adored and treated
as the golden boy.

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But adoration, it turns out, is not love.

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Adoration is a projection

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of someone's need for you to be perfect

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onto you.

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My father had to live up
to this impossible ideal,

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and so he was never allowed to be himself.

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He was never allowed to express tenderness

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or vulnerability, curiosity, doubt.

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He was never allowed to cry.

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And so he was forced to push
all those feelings underground,

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and they eventually metastasized.

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Those suppressed feelings
later became Shadowman,

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and he was out of control,

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and he eventually unleashed
his torrent on me.

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The third step is you have
to open your heart

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and feel what your victim felt
as you were abusing her.

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You have to let your heart break.

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You have to feel the horror and betrayal

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and the long-term impacts
of your abuse on your victim.

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You have to sit with the suffering
you have caused.

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And, of course, the fourth step

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is taking responsibility
for what you have done

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and making amends.

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So, why would anyone want to go through
such a grueling and humbling process?

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Why would you want to rip yourself open?

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Because it is the only thing
that will set yourself free.

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It is the only thing
that will set your victim free.

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You didn't just destroy your victim.

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You destroyed yourself.

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There is no one who enacts
violence on another person

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who doesn't suffer
from the effects themselves.

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It creates an incredibly dark
and contaminating spirit,

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and it spreads
throughout your entire life.

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The apology I wrote -- I learned something

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about a different lens
we have to look through

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to understand the problem
of men's violence

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that I and one billion
other women have survived.

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We often turn to punishment first.

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It's our first instinct, but actually,

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although punishment
sometimes is effective,

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on its own, it is not enough.

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My father punished me.

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I was shut down,

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and I was broken.

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I think punishment hardens us,
but it doesn't teach us.

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Humiliation is not revelation.

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We actually need to create a process
that may involve punishment,

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whereby we open a doorway

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where men can actually become
something and someone else.

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For so many years, I hated my father.

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I wanted him dead. I wanted him in prison.

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But actually, that rage kept me
connected to my father's story.

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What I really wanted
wasn't just for my father to be stopped.

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I wanted him to change.

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I wanted him to apologize.

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That's what we want.

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We don't want men to be destroyed,

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we don't want them to only be punished.

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We want them to see us,
the victims that they have harmed,

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and we want them to repent

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and change.

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And I actually believe this is possible.

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And I really believe it's our way forward.

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But we need men to join us.

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We need men now to be brave
and be part of this transformation.

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I have spent most of my life
calling men out,

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and I am here now,

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right now,

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to call you in.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)