I just finished replying to a friend today, a lovely and brilliant young woman who was assaulted on the Harvard Campus last year. She has confided in me several times, simply needing someone to listen and to share her deep distress. Despite my encouragement that she speak out, she is too afraid — not only of the man who assaulted her, but of Harvard’s powerful networks and capacity to blackball her, cast her as a troublemaker, ruin her career. I fervently hope for a day in which all women know that their greatest fear is their assailants or silence, not retaliation from the universities at which they study. And for the young men? I wish the same for them, knowing how many young men are allies in ending violence. So yes, needed some Martin Luther King Jr. this sunny Saturday morning.
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kimberlytheidon
Kimberly Theidon is a medical anthropologist focusing on Latin America. Her research interests include critical theory applied to medicine, psychology and anthropology, domestic, structural and political violence, transitional justice, reconciliation, and the politics of post-war reparations. She is the author of Entre Prójimos: El conflicto armado interno y la política de la reconciliación en el Perú (Instituto de Estudios Peruanos. first edition 2004) and Intimate Enemies: Violence and Reconciliation in Peru (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). She is currently involved in two research projects. She is completing research on “Pasts Imperfect: Working with Former Combatants in Colombia,” in which she works with former combatants from the paramilitaries, the FARC and the ELN. In Peru, she is conducting “Speaking of Silences: Sexual Violence and Redress in Peru,” an ethnographically grounded study of reparations, gender and justice. Dr. Theidon is an associate professor of anthropology at Harvard University, and the director of Praxis Institute for Social Justice.
kimberly theidon 