The first time it happened, I was thirteen years old, visiting the Bay Area with my mother for an early and ambitious look at colleges. As I trailed behind my mother through a gritty, crowded crosswalk in Union Square, a man reached out and grabbed my breast as he passed me. I was stunned, but kept walking; I didn’t know what else to do. I could scream, but I was afraid people would think I was overreacting. I could tell someone – a nearby police officer – but what if it wasn’t what I thought? Maybe I just bumped into his hand. When I reached the sidewalk, I stopped. “A man just grabbed my breast,” I quietly told my mother. I don’t think she knew what to do, either; we went on with our day.

Even as an adult, in similar scenarios on the street, in the office, or at bars, I’m not sure I know what to do. I’m afraid of overreacting, of misinterpreting – was that really what I think it was? And in recent weeks, it’s become clear that I’m not alone: nearly every day, new reports of sexual harassment and misconduct are surfacing. It’s appalling to see how widespread this behavior is, and at the same time, oddly comforting to know that I’m not alone in experiencing it and in feeling unsure of how to respond when it happens.

Throughout our lives, we learn how to respond to so many difficult and scary situations. For example, I don’t remember learning about gun safety or “stop, drop, and roll,” just like I don’t remember learning how to walk: it exceeds the farthest reaches of my memory and is so deeply ingrained, I can’t imagine not having this knowledge.

Similarly, I learned in kindergarten what to do if I ever got lost. I committed my phone number and address to memory, and can still recite both, decades and many new phone numbers later. Further down the road of growing up, I learned how to confidently say no to drugs, role-playing different scenarios with my sixth-grade classmates in our weekly D.A.R.E. sessions. And in college, I learned how to keep myself safe when walking alone at night, how to fight off an attacker – but what if that attack happens in broad daylight, in your office, at the hands of someone you know and perhaps once respected?

I wonder what would happen if we gave girls and women the tools they need to respond to sexual misconduct appropriately and with confidence that they are not overreacting or misinterpreting, that they are not somehow at fault. What would it look like to incorporate this into sex ed curriculums, or to talk about workplace harassment in the personal safety classes offered on so many college campuses?

Of course, I hope that this will be a transformative moment for our society – that victims will now have a voice, that perpetrators will now be held accountable – but this doesn’t seem realistic. There are still so many voices defending the accused, still leaders in office who have been elected despite a history of sexual misconduct. But I wonder if, by giving women and girls the tools they need to feel strong and confident in responding, we can drive lasting change.