Notes on a Silencing

Crawford (Hold Still) explores the effects of sexual assault with visceral force and honesty. After her private boarding school came under investigation for sexual assaults on campus, she came forward with her experience, which occurred decades earlier. Crawford works through complex theoretical issues related to gender, class, and privilege as they intersect with trauma, shame, and silencing. This provides a kind of bridge between issues raised by the #metoo movement and the nuances of sexual assault case investigations with its powerful emphasis on what Crawford describes as the “near impossibility of telling what happened in a way that discharges its power.” While the memoir itself is beautifully written, the book also provides a very real corrective to the oversimplification we often make when we think that telling a story, bringing a case to trial, or “winning” in some public way is enough to restore what has been taken from a survivor of sexual assault.