We often hail sports stars for their courage and their bravery when, in truth, it’s nothing of the sort, at least not in a meaningful sense.
Real courage, real bravery, is what Ilima-Lei Macfarlane, the Bellator women’s flyweight champion, and two other women did Thursday in Hawaii: They stood up and spoke out about being sexually abused as children.
Macfarlane, her sister, Mahina Macfarlane-Souza, and a third woman identified only as Jane Doe filed a suit in Hawaii against Punahou School in Honolulu and its then-girls basketball coach, Dwayne Yuen, accusing Yuen of sexual abuse when they were players on his team.
Yuen has not responded to the allegations.
These are the kinds of incidents that change a woman’s life, that make it difficult for her to trust, which make it feel like she did something wrong. She was a child and an authority figure allegedly violated that trust in the most despicable way imaginable.
Women for years have feared coming forward to speak of rapes and sexual assaults from their past. They feel they have somehow done something wrong when the truth, of course, is that they have not. They fear peeling the scab off those wounds that were inflicted and the pain it will bring them again.
They fear the backlash from friends, from family, from strangers who may doubt them, mock them, call them liars and view them as something other than innocent victims.
In her lawsuit, Macfarlane admitted that the abuse impacted her relationships going forward. It also, she said, ended her love for basketball. She said she’d dreamed of one day playing in the WNBA, but gave up on basketball because of the emotions that were triggered by the assault she’d suffered at the hands of her coach.
In the suit, Macfarlane said the abuse “has 100 percent affected what I think is a healthy relationship.”
She’s gone on to become one of the best in the world at her chosen profession and has succeeded in spite of the obstacles that were thrown in front of her when she was in grade school.
This is where the fame she has earned as an athlete will come in handy. By speaking out, she’s made herself an example for those who have suffered — or are now suffering — similar abuse, and let them know that it’s not their fault. It’s OK to speak out. It’s OK to seek help.
As a society, we have to give women who make these claims the benefit of the doubt. They often agonize over what they believe they did wrong for years, and in some cases, decades. It impacts all aspects of their lives, as it did with Macfarlane.
Who knows if she’d been good enough to make it to the WNBA? The odds would have been against her, but she deserved the opportunity to chase her dream.
But who knows how many personal relationships she had that were broken because she couldn’t bring herself to speak of the horror that she experienced as a child?
She deserved the right to have fun playing basketball, to socialize with her friends, to learn from her coaches. That was all taken from her at a young age.
Victims in these cases pay a heavy price.
Those like Macfarlane who choose to speak out, who decide to confront their accuser and tell him they won’t give him any more power over them, are the truly brave ones among us. They have a lifetime of horrible memories that they’re unleashing by speaking out and seeking justice.
They seek justice, though, not just for themselves but for all of those who will be abused in the future. They’re making it easier for others to report what happened to them and to save them from a lifetime of anguish and nightmares and doubts and fears.
It’s horrible that a person in a trusted position of authority would take advantage of three young women like Yuen is alleged in this lawsuit to have done.
But when we let victims know that we understand that it’s not their fault, that they’re doing the right thing by speaking out, we’re helping to at least decrease the likelihood that the cretins who perform these acts can continue to victimize others.
The cycle needs to stop, and the brave and courageous women like Macfarlane who speak out are doing their share to help end it.
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