2023

I woke up feeling groggy and disoriented. Staring at the ceiling, I did not recognize where I was, whose bed I was in. Looking down, I noticed that I was half-dressed and beside me was a man I knew of as the father of my daughter’s boyfriend.

I learned in elementary school that there are four kinds of sentences: declarative, exclamatory, imperative, and interrogatory. A case could be made for assigning the phrase “Me, too” to several of these categories. It could be considered declarative—an assertion of solidarity. Or perhaps exclamatory—a cry for affirmation. Or imperative, for these two simple words carry with them the voice of a command, especially by women who have been sexually abused or harassed, to be heard and valued.

Dear Pulse readers,

She came to me many months after the birth of a healthy child. I’d looked after her during the pregnancy, and her husband had accompanied her on many of those visits. He was a nice man–pleasant and attentive. I did my best to include him in our conversations about the pregnancy and upcoming birth.

Now she was pregnant again, and she’d come to see me alone. Her husband wanted her to continue the pregnancy, she said, but she wasn’t so sure.