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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discloses how sexual abuse in her early 20s drove her to run for office

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talks about the sexism experienced by prominent women and why her own presidential aspirations failed to materialize

In an interview that was released on Wednesday, September 7, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talked openly about having experienced sexual assault. She described the anguish and difficulty of facing the man who, according to her, sexually assaulted her while she was in her early 20s. She claimed that although she didn't recognize it at the time, the incident contributed to her decision to run for government years later.

The fiery Democratic candidate who was interviewed and is on the cover of GQ's October issue is known to be the political hero of many. In the enlightening cover story, she talks about the sexism experienced by prominent women and why her own presidential aspirations failed to materialize once she was elected to Congress. She also discusses her choice to inform New York demonstrators that she had been raped when she was 22 or 23 after Roe v Wade was overturned. One significant trauma that many assault survivors experiences, according to her, is the battle to be believed. Because of the stress of having that incident contested in front of the public, there are portions of it that I might never reveal, she embarked.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez AKA AOC went on to say that there was merit in being public. Discussing her past with the magazine which involved sexual abuse, she said, “It was someone that I was dating that I was not sexually active with, who forced themselves upon me,” adding that things did not go well when she confronted him later. “The insistence on a denial of what happened that very, very clearly happened is also a throughline with other women's experiences, friends that I've had, or just a pretending that what very clearly happened, did not happen,” she said. “That, too, is also an assertion of power, and so this assertion of power and dominance over others is not limited to the actual physical fact, but how things are treated afterward. I can say that in retrospect, but obviously, I didn't know that at the time.”

In 2018, AOC won a congressional seat. In a liberal neighborhood of New York City, winning was all but a given, but her journey to get there made her an overnight sensation. In a primary, the former bartender beat the incumbent Democrat. Joe Crowley, who had wealthy backers, was thought to be the next speaker of the House, but AOC's tenacious group of followers assured a surprise. She teamed up with other rookies and women who shared her political views to establish ‘The Squad,’ a group of vocal leftists.

GQ acknowledges that she is the cultural celebrity whose influence transcends politics and is the political voice of a generation. Some members of the progressive left have started to discuss her as a potential movement leader and presidential contender but she has reiterated that the country will never let her run for president.