When I was being cross-examined by my stalker's defence lawyer in court, he pulled out a dictionary, pointed to the word "harassment" and asked me to read its meaning aloud. I refused. He then picked one of the dozens of messages my stalker had sent me and asked what exactly was abusive about it. When I asked, "Isn't that abusive language?", the judge reprimanded me for asking questions back. The lawyer, I was told, was merely doing his job. At one point, the defence lawyer read aloud one of my stalker's disgusting messages. The judge remarked, "oh, our accused is a budding poet," and proceeded to laugh, along with the defence lawyer and a few others in the courtroom. Procedure is punishment. If a survivor even musters the courage to fight back, the system will make sure she regrets it, questions herself and second-guesses her decision to seek justice every step of the way. She is made to relive her trauma, defend her dignity, justify her fear and prove, over and over again, that what happened to her was wrong. The perpetrator gets a defence. The survivor gets put on trial. Men enable men. And patriarchy has ensured that men occupy most of the positions from which women's experiences are questioned, minimised and dismissed. We keep getting asked why women don't report sexual violence and harassment. Why we don't fight back. Why we withdraw complaints. Why we choose silence. They are in denial about what we are put through when we do.