Michelle Obama spoke in Hartford, Connecticut last week about the multiple sexual assault allegations in Hollywood and industries around the world.

“If we want young women to be strong and have voices and advocate for themselves, then we have to realize how much work we have to do,” Obama said, according to People. “And I’m talking to the men out there, who cannot be innocent bystanders and complacent…watching this happen.”

“I can’t tell you how sick it makes me,” she said. “The more I see the uncovering of the truth that all us women know has been out there, that there is an ugliness there.”

“It shouldn’t be something I even would have to mention,” she said. “But when we live in a world…where young girls are literally in danger of some kind of mess, whether it’s what a man says to us, or how he looks at us, or an opportunity that is taken from us, or somebody who’s got our foot on our necks…it is such a sad, common existence for women and girls in this country. I was one of the lucky ones. I am what it looks like when a girl is loved and nurtured and invested [in.]”