Meghan disliked Ernest Hemingway for his misogyny and cult of masculinity, which mar Hemingway’s work, but I admire Hemingway for his writing on war, which is some of the best anti-war literature of the 20 th century, as well as for his lyricism and rhythm. Steve Pierce and Branda Miller, who run The Sanctuary and who organize a vegan dinner before my talks, would invariably wrench me away from a heated discussion with Meghan about some poet or author to go into the sanctuary and give my lecture. Not surprisingly, once she moved to Troy, Meghan gravitated to The Sanctuary.
I often speak at The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, a remarkable grassroots organization in an old church that runs a small radio station, community science lab, cultivates urban gardens, programs for inner-city youth, gives space to artists and has broadcast quality television equipment to record lectures and make documentaries.
She used the same powers of persuasion to get Cornel West to visit her students. I don’t usually speak at high schools, but her passion, her persistence, her literacy and brilliance, and her devotion to her students led me to agree. She asked me to speak to her high school philosophy club. She approached me in the park dressed in a wild cacophony of cast-off clothes – she only shopped at thrift stores – and a mass of thick red hair. She was, at the time, teaching English at Chatham High School in New Jersey. I met Meghan in September 2011 at the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park. Their stories, which include weeks, months and even years of abuse and sexual assault, lead to severe psychological and physical distress. But Meghan, whom I knew, like all these girls and women, should not be allowed to become statistics. It is also not, as it should be, part of our national discourse. This epidemic of male violence against girls and women is not a law enforcement priority. Few, outside the small circle of family and friends, care. In Montana, 26 percent of all missing person reports are Native girls and women who make up less than 7 percent of the state’s population. Some 40 percent of all girls and women reported missing are people of color – 100,000 out of 250,000 – although they are 16 percent of the population. without little investigation or public outcry. But poor girls and women, especially of color, disappear in the U.S. She was loved and respected in her community.
That is 99.1 percent of rapes committed by men and 88.7 percent of murders and manslaughters committed by men. The FBI reports more than 80 percent of violent crimes are committed by men. Male-perpetrated violence, especially domestic violence, is intimately linked to missing girls and women. Over a quarter of a million girls and women go missing in the U.S. If she were not afraid, she would, I expect, still be with us. She would not have gone to the Red Lion Inn if she had not been afraid. What is not speculation is that, like many girls and women, she feared for her life because of male violence. But, being a writer, as well as deeply empathetic, it is doubtful she would have killed herself without leaving a note.Īll of this is speculation. She would have been aware of the date of Woolf’s suicide which so eerily coincides with her disappearance. Was Meghan murdered? Was she abducted and taken somewhere? Did she go underground? Did she walk into the nearby Housatonic River with stones in her pockets to drown herself the way Virginia Woolf, whom she idolized and who was a victim of sexual abuse, did on March 28, 1941, in the River Ouse? Meghan, a poet and gifted writer, was a voracious reader. Police combed the park and surrounding area. The last ping from her cell phone did not come from the loop trail in the park, but in a rural residential area across the road. The car keys, the hotel key, her daily diary, her good luck stuffed animal Bun, her computer, her wallet, the book she was reading, The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry, and cell phone were missing. Her black Subaru was found at a trailhead on Church Street in South Lee at the 46-acre Janet Longcope Park about two miles from the inn. She was granted a leave from teaching and camped out at The Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. This is the story of a friend who has become one of these grim statistics.Ī few days before Meghan Marohn, a 42-year-old English teacher at Shaker High School in Latham, New York, disappeared, she confided to friends that she had gone into hiding to escape from a man who had “brutally harassed and intimidated me because I wouldn’t sleep with him.” She said she was too afraid to stay at home, especially when she saw him drive by her house. There is a national epidemic of missing girls and women.
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