“I’m not afraid to say” is the most courageous campaign on the Runet. I'm not afraid to say: a piercing and terrible confession of a victim of violence Flash mob I'm not afraid to say Anastasia Melchenko

In the Russian and Ukrainian segment of Facebook, the flash mob “I’m not afraid to say” has been thundering for almost a week. Ukrainian public figure Anastasia Melnichenko published a post in which she described sexual harassment committed against her and called on other women to do the same.

Anastasia described the purpose of the event as follows:
« Have men ever wondered what it's like to grow up in an atmosphere where you're treated like meat? ... I know that this is unlikely to reach them. I wouldn’t explain anything at all, but, unfortunately, they are half of humanity.
It is important for us women to talk about our experiences. It is important to make it visible. Please speak up. »

And the ladies spoke. The Facebook feed turned out to be filled with stories of all possible kinds, from little things like offers to get acquainted, which are usually not paid attention to at all and forgotten immediately after the end of the phrase, to absolutely terrible criminality. The vast majority of these stories were written on behalf of victims and not anonymously.

Flash mob has become very popular. Many media outlets wrote about him.

We can already draw some conclusions. And these results are disappointing. This strange event, like a drop of water, reflected the very sad intellectual state of our society.

Any normal person, when starting an event, first formulates the goal that he wants to achieve, and after that, based on the desired goal, he thinks through the sequence of actions that must be performed to achieve this goal.

What is the purpose of the “I'm Not Afraid to Say” event? But none. He has no goal. “It’s important for us to talk about our experiences” is not the goal. This is an emotion. The goal is “to do so that.”

So what did the initiator of the flash mob want to achieve? Nothing.

Although activities associated with any kind of violence may have a number of very worthy goals. For example:
- in the future, reduce the number of cases of such violence to a minimum, ideally to zero,
- find the perpetrators of crimes already committed and punish them,
- try, as far as possible, to minimize the harm from violence already committed for victims.

To achieve these goals, it would be reasonable to do the following:
- introduce legislation that would facilitate victims’ access to justice and make punishment as inevitable as possible (because for crime prevention, the most important thing is not the severity of punishment, but its inevitability),
- create instructions for potential victims on what to do to avoid becoming victims,
- carry out explanatory work among potential criminals that a certain set of actions is a crime, an offense, that it is cruel, that this cannot be done (to influence their emotions, consciousness, fear, legal awareness - anything to prevent them from committing crimes).

In the stream of the “I’m not afraid to say” flash mob, sometimes there are grains of common sense in the form of instructions for potential victims or their parents on how to avoid violence, in the form of calls to men to make sure that the girl definitely agrees, in the form of instructions on what to do in case of violence still happened. But these rare useful resources are drowned in a stream of meaningless pornography.

Psychologists are clutching their heads: from the stream of descriptions of cases of violence in the tape, victims are re-traumatized. Some especially impressionable and suggestible people suddenly remember or “remember” some minor incident a hundred years ago and begin to suffer from it - and the suffering is completely real.

Very indicative in this sense is the post of one girl who described what happened to her in a pioneer camp. Several boys from her troop began asking her and her friend if they were Jewish. The girls refused to answer. The boys began to show aggression towards them, the girls ran to their room and locked themselves in there. Having quarreled a little under the door in the spirit of “girls, what are you talking about, we want to be friends,” the boys left. For many years, the author of the post believed that this was a story about anti-Semitism. And after reading “those who are not afraid to speak out,” I suddenly “realized” that this was a story about harassment.

In general, from meaningless activity, as is usually the case, there is almost no benefit except harm.

Flash mob participants, as expected, demonstrate the same level of goal-setting as its initiator.

Why do people, mostly women, talk about being victims of harassment or sexual assault? Especially if violence did occur? What is the purpose of a person notifying the whole world that he has become a victim? That he's a loser. That he was unlucky.

Your future husband should be told about this biographical fact. It’s simply dishonest not to tell. He must know who he takes into his family and makes the mother of his children. But to the city and the world? For what???? This is just as absurd as suddenly informing others about your illnesses, or phobias, or other facts of your biography, in which there is no subject for pride.

In some cases this might be justified. If a person decided to consciously sacrifice his reputation for the sake of other people and would write a text like: “I performed such and such actions, as a result such and such a story happened to me. So that you do not become a victim like me, do not repeat my mistakes and do such and such actions.” Well, or, at worst, “such and such a misfortune happened to me, I overcame its consequences for a long time and finally overcame it, here is my advice on how to overcome the consequences of this misfortune.”

But in the overwhelming majority of cases, flash mob participants do not draw any conclusions from their stories or create any instructions. They simply alert others that they are victims.

Recently, this has generally become fashionable in the West: talking about your failures, your status as a victim. Without any benefit, without any conclusions. Just telling. It is becoming fashionable to be proud of your weaknesses, your losses, your failures.

This is a wild, strange and extremely dangerous trend for civilization. Throughout the development of mankind, people have been proud of what they have accomplished. We were proud of our victories. We were proud of the strong. Now it is becoming fashionable to be proud of weakness, losses, defeats.

If we continue in the same spirit, the survival of European civilization will be in very big question.

Conclusion one: there is no need to follow the stupid European fashion of being proud of weakness. Broadcasting failures into the public space is bad for business. This creates a completely wrong feeling among others that “nothing will work out anyway.” You need to draw conclusions from failures and, if you translate them, then evaluate the failures and suggest what needs to be done to improve the situation.

Conclusion two: citizens, when you start something, act in the following order:

first understand what your goal is,

then think through a sequence of actions that can lead to this goal,

then implement this sequence.

This is not difficult, this is exactly how you solved problems in school math lessons for many years. Just apply the techniques you learned in school to your regular activities.

Journalist Anastasia Melnichenko started a flash mob “I’m not afraid to say” against violence against women in the Ukrainian segment of Facebook. Under a special hashtag, users tell stories of rape and sexual harassment, some men support them, others believe that the flash mob was made up.

Journalist Anastasia Melnichenko wrote on July 5 Facebook about sexual harassment from men that she experienced in childhood and adolescence, emphasizing that in such situations the victim should not feel guilty.

I am 6-12 years old. A relative comes to visit us and loves to sit me on his lap. At some point, when I became a teenager, he wants to kiss me on the lips, I get indignant and run away. They call me "impolite."
I am 13 years old. I’m walking along Khreshchatyk, carrying home a bag of groceries in each hand... Suddenly a man coming towards me abruptly changes his trajectory and, from a running start, grabs me between my legs, so hard that he lifts me up on his arm. I'm so shocked that I don't know how to react. The man lets me go and calmly moves on.
I’m 21. I broke up with a psychopath, but I forgot my grandfather’s embroidered shirt... I go to his house, he twists me, forcibly undresses me and ties me to the bed, he doesn’t rape me, he “just” physically hurts me... He takes pictures of me naked and threatens to post the pictures on the Internet . For a long time I’m afraid to tell what he did to me, because I’m afraid of the photo... And I’m afraid because I’m ashamed of my body.
- Anastasia Melnichenko

Anastasia called on women under the hashtag #I'm not afraid to tell (I'm not afraid to say) to tell their stories so that men understand what is happening around them.

Have men ever wondered what it's like to grow up in an atmosphere where you're treated like meat? You haven’t done anything, but everyone considers themselves to have the right to fuck you and dispose of your body. I know that this is unlikely to reach them. I wouldn’t explain anything at all, but, unfortunately, they are half of humanity.
- Anastasia Melnichenko

The hashtag received a huge response in the Ukrainian segment of Facebook, under the hashtag #I'm not afraid to say, women tell their stories about sexual violence.

I was about 9 years old or so. I remember that day I wanted to dress to be beautiful. I wore a pink skirt and a blue long sleeve blouse and a headband on my hair. I really liked myself...
He was about 50. Trousers, a brown T-shirt with a turn-down collar, smoky sunglasses, a looming bald spot, and a briefcase in his hands. Not some outcast or stoner. A representative and respectable aged man.
“Girl, where is the nearest school here? I’m looking for young artists to star in films.”
“Don’t you want to act in films?”
The film was called "The Gardens of Babylon". That's what he said.
He needed to check something. And he led me into the nearest front door. It was echoing, cool and empty inside. And there he began to paw me. And I stood and endured. You must listen to your elders. He probably really needs to check something. He's making a movie, after all.
- Svietlana Spector

I'm 18. I quarrel with my parents and run away from home, walk down the street and cry. Some man says to me: “Girl, what happened?” I tell him everything, and he says: “Come on, I’ll make you some coffee, go away.” I believe him and go, fool. At home he rapes me and lets me go. I return to my room, remain silent and take a long shower. When a friend heard this story, all she said was what a great boyfriend you have, he didn’t leave you [after that].
- Natalya Gaida

I’m 15. It’s a winter evening, I’m returning home from training. On the bus, two cops in uniform and with sunflower seeds press me to the handrail, separating me from others, and offer to “spend a cultural evening just with me. Why not? How come you don’t want to?” And again and again all the half an hour that it took to drive. I don’t remember how I ran away, but I remember that none of the passengers, of course, helped - everyone turned away, and everyone pretended that nothing was happening.
- Anna Vovchenko

Men also began to react to the flash mob, many outraged by how cruel society is towards women.

I read a dozen stories under the hashtag #I’m not afraid to say. I want to take out a drill with nails and frantically fuck the immoral monsters. The stories with girls aged 6-10 are most striking. This is a fierce p****t! And the common mantra in society, “it’s your own fault, keep quiet,” which is mentioned in almost every post, is tearing it to pieces. Society of slaves and cowards... Correct hashtag! The right idea!
- Artem Sokolenko

Others speak out against the flash mob, consider it anti-men and made out of nothing, and emphasize that men also suffer from violence, including from women.

In response to the anti-men flash mob #I'm Not Afraid To Say, they suggest responding with the mirror #BabaDinamo. You know, different things happen in everyone’s life, but that doesn’t mean everyone around them is an idiot).
- Vyacheslav Ponomarev

Dear women, I risk breaking your cravings. The role of the victim, the weaker sex, gender inequality and all that... I'm a man, I'm 37, and when I was 11, an elderly lecher tried to seduce me. Went to bed with me. I ran away when he started groping me. Sex didn't happen. Child molestation is disgusting, forced sex is undignified. And why is there a floor here? Are only women likely to get hurt? A woman can be both a victim and a rapist. Or an accomplice.- Evgeniy Mitsenko

After posts from men, Anastasia Melnichenko added to her first post a call for them to share similar stories. Facebook has already launched similar hashtags #I'm not afraid to say and #IamNotAfraid so that stories about violence are published by Russian-speaking and English-speaking users.

Previously, Medialeaks talked about a resonant story in the United States, when a judge sentenced a 20-year-old Stanford University student to only a six-month prison sentence for rape. His victim wrote, which was published by major media outlets, Americans demanded the judge’s resignation.

We also wrote about the winners of the Miss Russia contest, who spoke in interviews, including about their appearance.

And I am in a state of achtung. For those who don’t know: a couple of days ago, under this hashtag, women began to post their stories of violence, which they did not tell anyone - because they were ashamed or scared or because they did not think it was important.

Something terrible has never happened to me - pah-pah-pah - but behind my back there are several stories of harassment that I did not tell about, because nothing terrible happened.

I'm 12, I'm on a full trolleybus going home from school. I’m standing in front of a seat with a young couple, and there’s a guy standing close to my right. I feel that something strange is starting to push against me, I look down and don’t understand what I see, but I guess that “this is what he looks like, it turns out.” The young couple sees all this, but pretends not to see anything. It’s inconvenient for me to move away, because “what will others think,” but after two minutes I still push myself to the other end of the trolleybus.

In about another year I'm leaving school again. The bus is half empty, a man sits in front of me and looks at me strangely, intently and for a long time - for about 10 minutes. I get up and pretend that I am going to get off at the bus stop. He gets up too. The bus stops and the doors open. He comes out, I hide behind the seats. The doors close, he looks around at the stop, sees me on the leaving bus and sees me off with the same strange and intent gaze.

After about a couple of months, I go to the store through the forest, where there are usually always a lot of people, so it’s quite safe. There were a hundred meters left before going out onto the street, I overtook some guy. I can’t explain why a second “before” I felt in my backside that I had to start screaming - and I was right, because he threw me to the ground when I was already screaming. He just got up and left. I took a different route back from the store.

I'm 18, someone finally asked me out on a date. At the end of the date, he asked me, “Well, should we go home?” I refused. The first date turned out to be the last.

I'm 27, I have a strange fan. After two weeks of communication, I told him that we were clearly not a couple, so I suggested we stop communicating. For the next six months I didn’t know where to go because I was blamed for trying to ruin his life, because he did to me, because he was so nice, and I was clearly hiding something if I didn’t want to be with him. He disappeared only when I changed all my phones and even my country of residence. Last summer, from some wrong Facebook account, he again asked me to explain to him why I refused to build a relationship with him five years ago. I didn't respond, so a few months later he wrote to my husband and asked him to ask me to respond to him. The husband politely but firmly replied to go through the forest and not return.

Mom once told me how some dude came up to her on the subway and told her right to her face that he wanted her. Mom was a person from the eighteenth century, so she ran out of the car in tears out of shame. My sister also had a strange (to put it mildly) admirer who still haunts her. Without going into details, the father raised his hand to both of them - extremely rarely, but nevertheless. This fate of family violence - and this is family violence - had mercy on me, but I remember that when I pulled him away from his mother and said that he had no right to raise his hand against a weak woman, he answered me that if some loser one day... If he marries me, then let me read morals to him.

None of us ever went to the police or openly discussed these stories. I never thought they mattered because nothing bad happened. Well, I came across assholes on my way, well, what can I do, it doesn’t happen to anyone. It turns out that it happens to almost everyone and the scale of this problem is off scale. And this is the worst thing - in this insane number of stories when it seems like nothing terrible happened, but this should not happen in principle. But it will happen as long as we remain silent, because if something is not massively and loudly condemned, then it seems to be possible. This is scary.

And it’s even more scary to read the comments of some “people” on these stories, who say that women themselves are to blame - you need to dress more modestly, you need to behave differently, so that you seem to agree, that if you really didn’t want to, you would fight back and so on.

There is this schizophrenic point of view in society that if a man starts harassing a woman, it’s because she’s wearing a skirt / wearing makeup / looking in his direction / acting like she doesn’t mind / and so on. That is, he is, of course, wrong, but there is a share of my guilt there, because I kind of provoke. But if I start grabbing men by the balls in a subway car, then I’m definitely wrong and abnormal, because he certainly didn’t provoke me in any way with his suit and tie.

We all needed this hashtag #I'm not afraid to say, because it's high time to remove the taboo label from the topic of harassment and violence against women. There is some kind of unspoken agreement in society that a man supposedly has some kind of patriarchal superiority, so it’s not that it’s possible for him, but it’s often kind of excusable for him to reach under women’s skirts or raise his hand to them. In Europe this is a little better than in Russia, but here too there is this “it’s your own fault” stigma.

And as long as this unspoken consent exists, every girl can face harassment and violence - and we have a responsibility to do everything to prevent it. I definitely don’t want my niece or my friends’ daughters to encounter my stories, even if, I repeat, nothing terrible happened in them. I don’t want some pervert poking their noses at them as 12-year-olds, not to mention anything more. I want them to live in a safe world where no one thinks it's okay to harass them or hit them simply because they are women. And I want this for all the girls and women of the world.

I won't explain why because it's obvious, but no means no. And if someone could not keep his penis in his pants or his hand in his pocket, then he is to blame, not the woman. Dot. And it’s time for us ALL to agree with this.

Journalist Anastasia Melnichenko started a flash mob “I’m not afraid to say” against violence against women in the Ukrainian Facebook segment.
Under a special hashtag, users tell stories of rape and sexual harassment, some men support them, others believe that the flash mob was made up.

Journalist Anastasia Melnichenko wrote on Facebook on July 5 about the sexual harassment from men that she experienced in childhood and adolescence, emphasizing that in such situations the victim should not feel guilty.

I am 6-12 years old. A relative comes to visit us and loves to sit me on his lap. At some point, when I became a teenager, he wants to kiss me on the lips, I get indignant and run away. They call me "impolite."
I am 13 years old. I’m walking along Khreshchatyk, carrying home a bag of groceries in each hand... Suddenly a man coming towards me abruptly changes his trajectory and, from a running start, grabs me between my legs, so hard that he lifts me up on his arm. I'm so shocked that I don't know how to react. The man lets me go and calmly moves on.
I’m 21. I broke up with a psychopath, but I forgot my grandfather’s embroidered shirt... I go to his house, he twists me, forcibly undresses me and ties me to the bed, he doesn’t rape me, he “just” physically hurts me... He takes pictures of me naked and threatens to post the pictures on the Internet . For a long time I’m afraid to tell what he did to me, because I’m afraid of the photo... And I’m afraid because I’m ashamed of my body.

Anastasia called on women under the hashtag #I'm not afraid to tell (I'm not afraid to say) to tell their stories so that men understand what is happening around them.
Have men ever wondered what it's like to grow up in an atmosphere where you're treated like meat? You didn’t do anything, but everyone considers themselves to have the right to make pushing and shoving movements and control your body. I know that this is unlikely to reach them. I wouldn’t explain anything at all, but, unfortunately, they are half of humanity.

The hashtag received a huge response in the Ukrainian segment of Facebook, under the hashtag #I'm not afraid to say, women tell their stories about sexual violence.

I was about 9 years old or so. I remember that day I wanted to dress to be beautiful. I wore a pink skirt and a blue long sleeve blouse and a headband on my hair. I really liked myself...
He was about 50. Trousers, a brown T-shirt with a turn-down collar, smoky sunglasses, a looming bald spot, and a briefcase in his hands. Not some outcast or stoner. A representative and respectable aged man.
“Girl, where is the nearest school here? I’m looking for young artists to star in films.”
“Don’t you want to act in films?”
The film was called "The Gardens of Babylon". That's what he said.
He needed to check something. And he led me into the nearest front door. It was echoing, cool and empty inside. And there he began to paw me. And I stood and endured. You must listen to your elders. He probably really needs to check something. He's making a movie, after all.

I'm 18. I quarrel with my parents and run away from home, walk down the street and cry. Some man says to me: “Girl, what happened?” I tell him everything, and he says: “Come on, I’ll make you some coffee, go away.” I believe him and go, fool. At home he rapes me and lets me go. I return to my room, remain silent and take a long shower. When a friend heard this story, all she said was what a great boyfriend you have, he didn’t leave you [after that].

I’m 15. It’s a winter evening, I’m returning home from training. On the bus, two cops in uniform and with sunflower seeds press me to the handrail, separating me from others, and offer to “spend a cultural evening just with me. Why not? How come you don’t want to?” And again and again all the half an hour that it took to drive. I don’t remember how I ran away, but I remember that none of the passengers, of course, helped - everyone turned away, and everyone pretended that nothing was happening.

Men also began to react to the flash mob, many outraged by how cruel society is towards women.

I read a dozen stories under the hashtag #I’m not afraid to say. I want to take out a drill with nails and frantically fuck the immoral monsters. The stories with girls aged 6-10 are most striking. This is a fierce p****t! And the common mantra in society, “it’s your own fault, keep quiet,” which is mentioned in almost every post, is tearing it to pieces. Society of slaves and cowards... Correct hashtag! The right idea!

Others speak out against the flash mob, consider it anti-men and made out of nothing, and emphasize that men also suffer from violence, including from women.

In response to the anti-men flash mob #I'm Not Afraid To Say, they suggest responding with the mirror #BabaDinamo. You know, different things happen in everyone’s life, but that doesn’t mean everyone around them is an idiot).- VYACHESLAV PONOMAREV

Dear women, I risk breaking your cravings. The role of the victim, the weaker sex, gender inequality and all that... I'm a man, I'm 37, and when I was 11, an elderly lecher tried to seduce me. Went to bed with me. I ran away when he started groping me. Sex didn't happen. Child molestation is disgusting, forced sex is undignified. And why is there a floor here? Are only women likely to get hurt? A woman can be both a victim and a rapist. Or an accomplice.-EVGENIY MITSENKO

After posts from men, Anastasia Melnichenko added to her first post a call for them to share similar stories.
Facebook has already launched similar hashtags #I'm not afraid to say and #IamNotAfraid so that stories about violence are published by Russian-speaking and English-speaking users.

The flash mob #I'm not afraid to say is gaining momentum on social networks. The action encouraged many women to speak out about cases of sexual violence for the first time. Through social networks, one can again look at an experience that is simply ignored by many in the post-Soviet space.

We all know that rape is a highly traumatic experience for both women and men. It is extremely difficult to leave after it, and when society begins to push the phrases “it’s your own fault,” “there’s no point in putting up with quarrels in public,” “get over it, be proud,” then returning to normal life becomes even more difficult. It may seem to many of us that rape of women is an extremely rare case: the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus registered 145 cases of rape in 2015. In neighboring Russia, official government statistics are viewed rather critically, since they do not reflect the scale of the problem - according to surveys by the National Independent Commission of the Russian Federation on Women's Rights and Violence against Women in general, about 22% of the total female population of Russia has been raped at least once (with only 8% of them applied).

Unfortunately, it was not possible to find the results of such studies for Belarus, but the similarity of the cultural and sociological problems of both countries does not cast doubt on the fact that Belarus has not moved far from Russia. The scale of the problem in human society can be catastrophic - in 1998-2000, South Africa ranked first in rape in the world: 500,000 cases of rape per year, 25% of men in surveys said that they had raped someone at least once (sic! )

Given all of the above, the #I'mnot afraid to say flashback is a very important red flag for the societies of the former Soviet Union - the problem of rape exists and we need to do something about it.

Here are a few stories the media selected from #I'mAfraidToSay:

“I'm not afraid to say it. And I don't feel guilty.

I am 6−12 years old. A relative is coming to visit us. He loves to put me on his lap. At some point, when I was already a teenager, he wants to kiss me on the lips. I get indignant and run. They call me "ignorant."

I am 13 years old. I walk along Khreshchatyk, carrying home a bag of groceries in each hand. I walk the section from KSCA to TSUM. Soon my home. Suddenly, the uncle who was coming towards me abruptly changed his trajectory and grabbed me between my legs as he accelerated. He grabs me so hard that he lifts me up in his arm. I'm so shocked that I just don't know how to react. Uncle lets me go and moves on calmly.

I’m 21. I broke up with a psychopath (real, clinical), but I forgot my grandfather’s embroidered shirt at his house, which I wanted for him. I'm going to his house. He twists me, forcibly undresses me and ties me to the bed. No, he doesn't rape. “It just” hurts physically. I feel powerless because I cannot influence the situation in any way. He takes pictures of me naked and threatens to post them on the Internet. For a long time I am afraid to talk about what he did to me, because I am afraid of photos on the Internet. And I’m afraid because I’m very shy about my body (it’s funny to remember now).”

“I’m 10. Village, stove. Grandma's neighbor came by on some business. He sat down next to him and stroked his knee and above. I'm in a stupor, I don't know what to do.

I'm 13. Same village. I spent the evening on the dam with some guys I've known for years. They didn't do anything special. We sat and chatted. I say goodbye and go home. I understand that some of the guys are following me.

Next picture: I’m in the nearby bushes, they’re trying to pull off my panties. I'm actively fighting back. That was the end of it. They didn’t succeed, and then they turned everything into a game. And all relatively children were 13-16. And I pretended that nothing was wrong.”

“I’m 12 or 13, my parents and brother and I are at a recreation center either near Odessa or Berdyansk. Wooden houses and showers in the corners of the base. Even before lunch after the beach, I went to the shower to wash off the sand and water. For some reason, mom didn’t go, but what could have happened in the shower 200 meters from the house, in the middle of the day at a crowded base.

But there was no one in the shower. I undressed and began to wash myself in the stall farthest from the door. And a naked man walked into the women's shower. He pinned me in a corner and started touching me all over. I was lucky - after a couple of minutes a group of aunts fell in. The freak quickly ran out. Then my dad spent a long time looking for him around the base and neighboring ones. I never found it.”

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