1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

When Predators Hold Power: Why Women’s Bodies Know What Politics Pretend to Ignore I had a realization recently that did not come from thought, but from my body. From a place that has been keeping score since I was seven or eight years old, when grown men first stared, commented, and touched. Not always overtly. Often subtly. A hand at the waist. The small of the back. A lingering grip. Low-grade trespassing that teaches a girl early that her body is not fully her own. It never stopped. Through my teens, adulthood, and into my fifties. In workplaces and grocery stores, boardrooms and parties. This is what being a woman has meant for generations, even as we are told it is exaggerated or outdated. What I finally saw was how much of my life has been lived in a state of unsafety, and how deeply that shapes everything. Especially the ability to relax inside one’s own body. When your nervous system is trained from childhood to stay alert, intimacy requires effort, armor, and sometimes dissociation. This is not personal failure. It is conditioning. This is the water we swim in. I am fortunate to love and be loved by a man who is deeply safe. That should be ordinary. Instead, it feels exceptional. This is rape culture. And it is everywhere. One in four women in the United States has been sexually assaulted. Look at our media, where women’s pain becomes a plot device. Look at online spaces, where women with public voices face threats and sexualized violence meant to silence them. Abuse, trafficking, and exploitation are treated as isolated incidents rather than systemic realities. Now look at who holds power. We have elevated again a man found liable for sexual abuse, convicted of felonies tied to silencing a woman, and surrounded by networks that treat exploitation as entitlement. The Epstein files make the pattern undeniable. Wealth. Influence. Impunity. Mountains of evidence and virtually no consequences. The lesson is clear. Harming women is not disqualifying. Speaking out is. This is gaslighting at a societal scale. Women’s bodies know better. Our nervous systems are responding accurately to an environment that rewards predators and punishes accountability. We will not have a functional society until predatory behavior disqualifies people from power and accountability becomes the norm. One in four is too many. Two hundred sixty survivors are too many. Millions of pages with no reckoning are too many. As my elected representative, I am asking you to act. Support full public investigations of all individuals named in the Epstein files, with no special protections for wealth or power. Oppose any immunity that shields government agencies or officials, including ICE, from accountability for abuse or civil rights violations. Strengthen protections for survivors and hold institutions accountable for covering up sexual violence and exploitation. State clearly where you stand and what actions you are taking. I am paying attention, and I will vote accordingly