By 
By S. Rapoport
Where are you, sister?
I’ve sat with you singing hymns, thinking they were ours.
Rejoiced knowing that our voices, together, were finally making a dent in a patriarchal society.
One that would allow gender violence to go unpunished, unmentioned, cancelled.
Hey, I even made it my task to read the testimonies of Harvey Weinstein’s victims, finding a common thread of fear and paralysis.
When #MeToo erupted, I was ecstatic we shed light on a victim-blaming mentality.
And yet now you sit silent.
Where are the protests, when the lifeless naked body of a woman is paraded around in a car — a sick punching bag for men at war?
Where were you when we saw them taken by force, their crotches bursting with the blood of brutality?
Where is your outrage in the aftermath of October 7th, defending the captive?
That voice that gave us power because we raised it by the thousands — race, religion, country of origin notwithstanding.
Are you silent, by any chance, because the victims were Israeli, or in Israel, and thus “deserved it,” and “had it coming”?
And you say my writing’s not valid, because it comes from a place of anger. Well, back then, anger was the rightful emotion to denounce the weaponization of sexual power.
Look in the mirror, sister.
Why aren’t you up in arms protesting, screaming: me too, I AM you?
If anything, you should be furious.
About what happened to them.
About what could happen to us, in a world that stays silent.
So much has been lost in this conflict. I hope our sisterhood doesn’t end up a casualty.
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