Lena Dunham posted a video of her and her Girls costars telling people to support sexual assault victims Wednesday and dedicated the message to “the brave survivor in the Stanford case who has given so much to change the conversation.”
The survivor Dunham is referring to was assaulted by 20-year-old Brock Turner in 2015 on the Stanford University campus. Last Thursday, Turner was sentenced to six months in county jail plus probation, and his victim responded to this sentence (the prosecutor was aiming for a six-year sentence) by reading a powerful statement before the court.
“If you are hoping that one of my organs will implode from anger and I will die, I’m almost there,” she said in the statement, which BuzzFeed later published in full. “You are very close. This is not a story of another drunk college hookup with poor decision-making. Assault is not an accident. Somehow, you still don’t get it. Somehow, you still sound confused.” She then went on to respond to multiple points from Turner’s own statement.
In the clip Dunham posted, she, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, and Zosia Mamet question our “default reaction as a society to disbelieve, or to silence, or to shame.”
“You already have the power to create a safer, healthier environment for women to come forward,” Williams says. “So please, support, listen, take action.”
See the full PSA below.
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