No Heroes, No Monsters

Book excerpt: No Heroes, No Monsters focuses on the dramatic struggle of Anna Ardin, the WikiLeaks activist who, in 2010, came forward to report sexual abuse by Julian Assange. This is her testimony to a legal trial that was replaced by an Internet tribunal. A tribunal where women's rights are all too often both neglected and weaponized. A tribunal that every day of the year chooses a new woman to be the most hated. The book goes beyond the headlines - the black and white pictures of heroes or monsters - and emphasizes the need to acknowledge the shades of gray. In the book Ardin navigates through her personal life, the sexual assault charges, the media frenzy and the extensive hatred that followed from accusing a popular man, as well as through the unfair accusations of Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks. Ardin's story is a call for justice for everyone abused, holding even important people accountable. It's a powerful compilation of the feminist lessons Ardin learned from living, for over a decade, in the shadow of the "hero" myth.