WASHINGTON —Lynda Tran, a founding partner at 270 Strategies and CBS News Contributor, joined CBSN’s Anne-Marie Green and Vladimir Duthiers this morning to discuss her article on the current discussion of sexual harassment, her own experience with assault, and how we can make change for everyone.
On the decision to write this story:
“In a word, Anne-Marie, I’d say that the decision to talk about it was terrifying. You know, it is not a part of my life that I had ever shared widely. I could count on one hand the number of individuals before writing this piece I had ever told anything about this to, and when something like this happens to you, whether it’s when you’re an adult, or in my case when you’re really, really small, it really shapes the way that you look at the world, it shapes the way that you approach relationships that you have with people, whether they’re close or just in passing. And so it was very, very scary to put it on paper.”
On the words we use to describe sexual assault:
“I think that part of what makes somebody like me, and I think a lot of women in general, whether they’ve had experience with harassment or assault at all, bristle at the way that the conversation has been handled, despite the fact that there have been some good things about it, is this notion of labeling it ‘misconduct’ or ‘misbehavior.’ It just belittles what it is, it makes it seem like it’s not as significant as what it actually is in the lives of people and in its impact on our cultures. We should call it harassment. We should call it assault. And we should not minimize it by these labels that make it sound like you’re talking about locker-room activity or this notion of ‘boys will be boys.'”
