"I manage the story submissions at Mamamia. And my inbox is overflowing with fury."

Here at Mamamia our inbox is always open. As Commissioning Editor, I actively encourage women to share their stories with us. 

Every day I get submissions about parenting, about relationships, stories of love and betrayal. 

Sometimes I receive stories about sexual assault. 

But in the past two weeks, that’s all I've received. 

Watch: Grace Tame on the power of abuse survivor's stories. Post continues after video...

Dozens upon dozens of them. Each one painfully unique to the woman at the centre of it, but depressingly familiar at its rotten core. 

Earlier this month, Mamamia’s Billi FitzSimons wrote about how the nation’s capital is in the midst of a reckoning. About how Brittany Higgins’ public allegation that a male colleague raped her when she was working for a Liberal Party MP in 2019 had triggered a slew of subsequent allegations against members of parliament and former political staffers, including one against Attorney-General, Christian Porter. 

 Indeed, Canberra is having its own #metoo movement.

 And that movement, it seems, is having a ripple effect. 

Some of the stories I’ve received are from women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted in the workplace. Others are from women who have been raped abroad or at parties. 

There are stories from women who have been accused of lying about their sexual assault. From others who have been blamed for theirs. Some have never uttered a word about what happened to them. Until now.  

Sadly, there is nothing new about these stories. But there is something new in their telling; the stories I've received in the last few weeks are positively laced with anger.

Some of the emails aren’t even from survivors. They’re just from women who don’t know what to do with their rage.  

So they’re showing it to me, hoping I can make sense of it. 

But how can I do that when I'm every bit as angry? All of us are.

Last Wednesday afternoon, the Mamamia team watched the press conference in which Attorney-General Christian Porter denied raping a 16-year-old girl back in 1988. 

We are journalists. We do not get to decide if Porter is guilty or innocent. But for many, the rehashing of sexual assault allegations is painful. 

We wrote about the press conference. And we will keep writing the stories. We will keep giving a voice to women who’ve been silenced for too long. Even when it hurts. Especially then. 

Because something about the sheer volume of these emails and the visceral rage within them tells us it’s different this time. There is so much power in the white hot anger present in every word, power that we’re going to harness, starting now.

Women are mobilising. We’re organising protests, signing petitions, talking about tangible ways to make change, starting at the very top. 

Listen: Christan Porter. What happens now? Post continues after audio...

We truly believe this could be our watershed moment. But we can’t do it without you. 

As Australian of the Year and sexual assault survivor Grace Tame said in her address to the National Press Club just last week: “Share your truth, it is your power.” 

These stories, your stories, your truths. They are our power. Please keep sharing them with us.