The word "courage" has been discussed frequently since Caitlin Jenner made her debut as a transgender woman on Monday, but she wasn't the only woman to act courageously in front of the cameras this week.
Jill and Jessa Duggar did what many women who are the victims of sexual assault will never do - speak publicly about their abuse. A leaked police report may have forced their hand, but so far, the two sisters are the only victims of Josh Duggar to come forward.
"We didn't choose to come out and tell our story. This wouldn't have been our first choice," the 24-year-old Jill told Megyn Kelly in an interview on Friday. "This is something we chose to do. Nobody asked us to do this."
The young Duggar women opened up about their experience in a special edition of "The Kelly File" on Fox News. For them, the incident was a distant memory that they had worked through with the help of professional counseling and a supportive family.
"We had dealt with it. As a family, we had moved on," the 22-year-old Jessa when asked whether they feared launching a reality show. "I think the real issue is people are making this sounds like it happened yesterday and that it's ongoing."
When Josh confessed to the abuse, his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle, talked to the sisters individually to discuss what had happened. Both Jill and Jessa expressed shock, sadness and anger upon first learning what their brother had done.
They didn't downplay the seriousness of their brother's actions during the interview. The sisters eventually chose to forgive him, but he had broken a trust that took extensive work to rebuild, not only with his victims but his family as well.
"I had to make that choice to forgive him. It wasn't something somebody forced, like, 'You need to do this.' You have to make that decision for yourself," Jill said.
She later added, "Josh destroyed that trust at the beginning. He had to rebuild that. When he asked us to forgive him that was the point of rebuilding."
Their greatest emotional responses came from having to relive the event more than 10 years later because the police records had gone public. Jill immediately broke down in tears when Kelly broached the subject.
In Touch Weekly obtained the documents via a Freedom of Information Act request.
"We were pretty furious," Jessa said about her reaction to learning the report was released. "A system that was set up to protect kids both those that make stupid mistakes or have problems like this in their lives and the ones affected by those choices. It's greatly failed."
Throughout the interview, the two women defended their parents for the course of action they took in the wake of the abuse. Jim and Michelle eventually removed Josh from the home for a short period of time and set up safeguards around the house.
The sisters also realize that people's opinion of their family might be the reason why they haven't received the same public outrage or support from victims groups as other survivors of child abuse have in the past.
"The terrible thing about being a victim is that you're helpless in the moment over the actions of others," Jessa said. "In this situation, we're again helpless as to the people handing over this report and then the tabloids taking that and printing that and sensationalizing it."
