Over the past couple weeks, three very privileged people in America (cis, straight, white, monied women) have shared (or re-shared) stories of abuse or their support for victims of abuse.

Even though cis straight white monied women are the least likely of all women to be abused, the media and public pay the most attention to their stories because of transphobia, homophobia, white supremacy and privilege. Often, the men they accuse are famous or powerful or both.

Many people have questions about why privileged white women share their stories of abuse, abuse that maybe was less physically violent than others, abuse that we perceive as not having broken them because there they stand, relatively thriving, with varying amounts of money and status. Shouldn’t they be taking that time and energy to protect those more in danger than them? If the most serious impact of the abuse is that now the victim needs two front doors on her home instead of one, is this the abuse we should be paying attention to? Also, don’t we know the earth is melting? What seems more urgent?

Today, about her own story, Busy Philipps wrote on an Instagram caption, “It’s a story that I have been telling for years. James apologized. I accepted. And I still get to tell it because it fucking happened to me.” There’s the implication of privilege–“I still get to tell it.” Others don’t.

I’ve been thinking about this tweet by Sidrah Ahmad a lot since I first saw it. Be a traitor to the patriarchy; push the bricks of the wall from where you are.