Distortions

On language, shame and responsibility.

When I published The Monster Files trilogy, I wasn’t prepared for how many directions and angles the responses would come from.

Some women wrote letters to me with tears.

Some said they finally had language for something they had felt but never named.

Some called the work a movement, a long-awaited exhale.

Many invoked echoes of #MeToo - moments in history when silence cracked and collective recognition finally arrived.

And then, inevitably, there were others who found a way to debate.

Not the experiences.

Not the emotional truth.

The words.

Were we children or young women?

Is this the right framing?

Can we be both victims and survivors?

Who is responsible?

What counts as inappropriate?

Who’s at fault?

This pattern is not unique to my work. It’s everywhere. From halftime shows to headlines. From pop culture to policy. From parenting to politics.

We are, culturally, experts at turning human experiences into arenas of argument.

We debate semantics instead of empathy.

We argue responsibility instead of sitting with context.

We dissect language instead of witnessing the ache underneath it.

So let me say this clearly:

I take full responsibility for my actions and reactions.

Across decades.

Without qualification.

But responsibility does not erase environment.

It does not collapse power structures.

It does not simplify what it means to be young inside adult systems.

A moment in a life is never just a point on a timeline.

It is shaped by systems, norms, visibility, desirability, silence, praise, shame.

By what is rewarded.

By what is ignored.

By what is normalized.

When adolescents are placed into adult worlds, be it fashion runways, celebrity culture, online platforms, or professional arenas, our first reflex is often to argue about vocabulary. We hesitate to say “child” because it feels reductive. We hesitate to say “young woman” because it feels too soft. And so we circle language while avoiding context.

We intellectualize.

We litigate.

We draw lines around who was old enough, mature enough, aware enough.

I understand why.

These conversations are uncomfortable.

We argue not just about words, we argue about what we are willing to see.

We argue because if we stop arguing, we might have to feel.

Motherhood changed this for me.

When you hold your own children, fifteen rearranges itself.

Sixteen looks completely different.

Seventeen carries both confidence and fragility at the same time.

You see the bravado and the neurological becoming.

The innocence and the ignorance.

The fearlessness and the fire.

You see how much is still forming.

How much protection is still required.

How much dignity is deserved.

Suddenly the question is no longer about being right.

It is about foresight.

It is about responsibility that extends forward.

It is about what we normalize for the next generation.

That is why I built the charity. www.fempowher.global

That is why I invest in young girls’ voices.

That is why publishing, mentorship, media literacy, and safe storytelling spaces matter so much to me.

Because if we cannot hold agency and vulnerability in the same conversation, we will keep swinging between extremes.

Either stripping girls of dignity or denying their need for safeguarding.

Both are distortions.

Two things can be true at once:

Young women deserve respect.

Girls deserve protection.

Language will never perfectly hold that tension.

But intention can.

And beneath so much of this debating if we’re honest — is shame.

Shame about what we didn’t know.

Shame about what we normalized.

Shame about what we survived or witnessed from the sidelines.

Shame about what we might still be complicit in.

It is easier to argue than to sit in shame.

Easier to correct phrasing than to confront power.

Easier to debate responsibility than to examine systems.

But I am less interested in winning arguments and more interested in widening awareness.

Because once you become responsible for the next generation, the mirror stops being about you.

It becomes about what they will see

when they look into it.

And that, more than any debate

… is the work.