The pandemic kept me away from Philadelphia for over a year and a half, the longest I had ever been away from my hometown. As the plane descended out of the clouds, I gazed down on the city and was overcome with emotion. So much of my life had happened down there: celebration and mourning, love and heartbreak, triumph and failure.

Because women close to me had never confided their experiences of sexual violence, I was shocked when they began to tell me – first one, then another, and another– that they had been raped, sexually harassed, touched without permission, or abused in other ways. Listening to their stories, trying to absorb their pain while controlling my rage, I felt guilty about my own ignorance and inaction. Why was I shocked at a truth that has been true for so long? Why had I never spoken out before?