The Harvard women’s soccer team wrote a statement on the 2012 men’s team’s “scouting report.” I wrote my post on the report before reading the women’s statement, so I’m interested to see that they say what I said.

On Monday, October 24, The Crimson published a story detailing a “scouting report” written by members of the 2012 men’s soccer team regarding incoming female recruits on the women’s soccer team.

We are these women, we are not anonymous, and rather than having our comments taken, spun, and published behind the guise of a fake anonymity offered to us by numerous news outlets, we have decided to speak for ourselves.

When first notified of this “scouting report” each of us responded with surprise and confusion, but ultimately brushed off the news as if it didn’t really matter. As if we weren’t surprised men had spoken of us inappropriately. As if this kind of thing was just, “normal.”

The sad reality is that we have come to expect this kind of behavior from so many men, that it is so “normal” to us we often decide it is not worth our time or effort to dwell on.

That. It is normalized all over the place. It’s normalized on the most popular US sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. It’s normalized in all those Judd Apatow-Seth Rogen movies. It’s normalized in a billion jokes and cartoons and songs. It’s normalized. Women aren’t people, they’re a thing men want for fucking purposes.

In all, we do not pity ourselves, nor do we ache most because of the personal nature of this attack. More than anything, we are frustrated that this is a reality that all women have faced in the past and will continue to face throughout their lives. We feel hopeless because men who are supposed to be our brothers degrade us like this. We are appalled that female athletes who are told to feel empowered and proud of their abilities are so regularly reduced to a physical appearance. We are distraught that mothers having daughters almost a half century after getting equal rights have to worry about men’s entitlement to bodies that aren’t theirs. We are concerned for the future, because we know that the only way we can truly move past this culture is for the very men who perpetrate it to stop it in its tracks. [emphasis added]

Hello, UN? This is why Wonder Woman was a terrible idea, especially paired with the refusal to appoint a woman General Secretary or to promote women to more than 4% of the upper level jobs. 4%!! Do you get it now?

Having considered members of this team our close friends for the past four years, we are beyond hurt to realize these individuals could encourage, silently observe, or participate in this kind of behavior, and for more than four years have neglected to apologize until this week.

Friends don’t do that sort of thing.