Fugitivis' post about rape and social interactions
I've started taking my antibiotics and the side effects have made going to class uncomfortable. Also, trying to figure out a good time for taking this antibiotic twice a day, 2 hrs before and after meals/dairy products and "NOT BEFORE BEDTIME" is a lot harder than I thought. Especially with dance rehearsals/classes + side effects to consider.
Today I read shadesong's entry and followed her link to bookshop's entry "Bad Romance (or, YA & Rape Culture). I had Hush, Hush on my to-read list because the cover was beautiful and the synopsis on Goodreads.com didn't seem that bad, but reading that entry made me want to kick the book across a muddy field. (I still can't say I want to burn it. I don't know if I've yet reach a point of horror and hatred that I would say I want to burn a book.) That books sound like all the bad, anti-feminist parts of Twilight gone hay-wire. As one commentor said (I think), Twilight idealizes stalking = love, whereas Nora, the main female character in Hush, Hush knows that Patch's stalking is wrong and makes her uncomfortable. Apparently she tries repeatedly to get the bio teacher to change their seating arrangement, but he won't do it, scoffing at her statements she feels uncomfortable (I want to kill him), and she tells Patch, too, but he still pursues her. To the point that somewhere expelicitly in the book she wonders if he's going to rape her. WTF? This has a happy ending, apparently. They fall in love or whatever. Why is this a best seller about teenage love instead of a best-seller about "WHAT LOVE ISN'T" or "WHAT LOVE SHOULDN'T BE"???
But yes, I extremely dislike books where stalking and ignoring someone's request to back off is okay, it's romantic, it's tough-guy. The sought-after person will soon realize you're soulmates and meant for each other. I hate it more when it seems to "work" and the girl (usually it's the girl) falls for the guy in the end. I also hate it when movies have that kind of plotline. I don't care if it's a "cool, suave" guy going after a "bookish" girl, or a "socially awkward boy" going after a "really popular and hot girl" or gender roles reversed with the girl hunting the guy (though I can't really recall that many off the top of my head. I know "John Tucker Must Die" was more about revenge against a guy who played them all...). It doesn't matter if I'm suppose to root for the socially awkward person to win the popular person and show them that "hey, you're really shallow for thinking I'm not worth your time because I'm lower on the social status ladder than you. I'm a person, too, and I'm deep and quirky and treat you better than the shallow significant others [of the same social strata] you've been with." No... If someone tells you they are not interested in you, or shows it very, very obviously, or does not put forth any effort in talking to you, (rather than you cornering them and making them awkwardly talk back to you because you won't freaking let them be quiet), you should respect that. You should not make things awkward and embarrassing for the both of you for continually pursuing said person and coming up with antics that enroach on their personal space and discomfort them. What happened to respect? Over the years those movies have really started to bug me. Romance =/= wearing down someone's resistance and having them capitulate to date you, even if you do have some good qualities.
bookshop's entry leads to another blog, Fugitivis's "Another post about rape." To basically copy the same sections bookshop thought relevant:
If women are raised being told by parents, teachers, media, peers, and all surrounding social strata that:
If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways.
And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.
Women who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout “NO” at the top of their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably close.
Women who are taught not to keep arguing are not going to keep saying “NO.”
Women who are taught that their needs and desires are not to be trusted, are fickle and wrong and are not to be interpreted by the woman herself, are not going to know how to argue with “but you liked kissing, I just thought…”
Women who are taught that physical confrontations make them look crazy will not start hitting, kicking, and screaming until it’s too late, if they do at all.
Women who are taught that a display of their emotional state will have them labeled hysterical and crazy (which is how their perception of events will be discounted) will not be willing to run from a room disheveled and screaming and crying.
Women who are taught that certain established boundaries are frowned upon as too rigid and unnecessary are going to find themselves in situations that move further faster before they realize that their first impression was right, and they are in a dangerous room with a dangerous person.
Women who are taught that refusing to flirt back results in an immediately hostile environment will continue to unwillingly and unhappily flirt with somebody who is invading their space and giving them creep alerts.
People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, make obvious signals that they are uninterested in conversation or being in closer physical proximity and are ignored. They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal. They seem normal to women, and they seem normal to men, because we were all raised in the same cultural pond, drinking the same Kool-Aid.
And then, all of a sudden, when women are raped, all these natural and invisible social interactions become evidence that the woman wasn’t truly raped. Because she didn’t fight back, or yell loudly, or run, or kick, or punch. She let him into her room when it was obvious what he wanted. She flirted with him, she kissed him. She stopped saying no, after a while.
These rules for social interactions that women are taught to obey are more than grease for the patriarchy wheel. Women are taught both that these rules will protect them, and that disobeying these rules results in punishment.
She then talks about a scenario of being on a bus and having a guy giving you the eye and two various ways you could react to it - breaking the rules or obeying the rules. This really freaked me out because I remember the one time I was really uncomfortable on a bus to the public library because two guys kept talking at me (Event 3 on the day).
From that day, I wrote:
I hate that I didn't know what to say to make him shut the hell up or leave me alone. I know I could have, or should have, "I really don't feel like talking right now" but I felt so rude when I thought about saying that... Not to mention he was right behind me and I was a bit scared, too, if he'd do anything to me if I turned my back to him (but still leaning against the window). His brother was sitting next to him and their friend across the aisle. A part of me feels it was my fault for smiling and saying "Hey" back to him. Even when he apologized at the end if he was talking my ear off, I just smiled uncomfortably and said "It's okay. I guess I'm just not used to how friendly Midwesterners are." Instead of letting him know how uncomfortable he made me!! I guess I also didn't want to make a scene. >_< I feel like such a failure, a weak female. Bad feminist. I really hope I never see him and his brother around. I can't believe they had the nerve to ask me how often I take the bus. He asked me, also, if I drive around a lot or take the bus, and I said I prefer to take the bus..
I was doing the thing I had been taught, about bullying, or being bothered - "be quiet, don't make a fuss and maybe they'll go away." I also agree that back in anybody's mind when they're cornered like this is "What happens if I refuse them outright? Will it make them so angry they'll do something worse than what they're already doing/planning to do?" And I think that fear makes the cornered people more likely to not make a fuss/"play along" unless they're sure they're safe/there are other people around who would (presumably) care. The other time in 2003 I was alone in a mall and followed around, I kept ducking into high-frequented stores, hung out near the cashiers, or when I had to leave home, booked it down the escalators until I reached the taxi line where a police man was directing traffic/making sure people didn't cut the queue. And even then I was afraid to tell the police officer about the guy who followed me, who pretended he didn't have a watch on him so he could ask me the time. (He had his watch on one wrist under the long-sleeve shirt and I had asked him to show me both wrists.) I thought, at the time, that pointing out to him he was a fool and I wasn't going to fall for his idiotic pick up line was enough. It was just enough for me to be able to get in a taxi that would take me back to where I was staying. I didn't think about the fact that the follower should have been...taught/told his behavior was utterly inappropriate. :-S
It is scary how slippery the slope might be from not saying anything to someone talking to you inappropriately to them trying to cop a feel or a kiss to more. I'd like to think that if someone touched me inappropriately I'd be able to definitively tell them "What the fuck?! NO! Don't do it again!" instead of trying to avoid being rude and trying to explain nicely to them why it was wrong. (I'm not saying that people who have done this are weak.) I'd also like to think I'd have the strength to overcome this...training and push them away physically and be able to be willing to use anything to hurt them and make them realize I was serious about not being touched in a certain way. So far none of my uncomfortable situations have come that far. It might be sickening to say "I'm lucky it hasn't so far" because it makes it seem that everyday carries the active potential of being raped... But figuring out the statistics of rapes on college campuses and worldwide... But if I were ever in these situations...well, it's one of those where I can't say what I'd do until/unless I'm actually there.
A friend and I were talking about our scary run-ins yesterday. Next week is the start of Sexual Assault Awareness Week here, and there are self-defense classes being offered. I don't know if I can go, because of the time committments and projects I have already going on. But I had mentioned it to her and she commented that self-and-physical awareness was probably the biggest help in stranger run-ins (the kind we've had so far, as far as I know, at least). As for bad, inappropriate encounters with people we actually know and hang out with...I have no idea...
Today I read shadesong's entry and followed her link to bookshop's entry "Bad Romance (or, YA & Rape Culture). I had Hush, Hush on my to-read list because the cover was beautiful and the synopsis on Goodreads.com didn't seem that bad, but reading that entry made me want to kick the book across a muddy field. (I still can't say I want to burn it. I don't know if I've yet reach a point of horror and hatred that I would say I want to burn a book.) That books sound like all the bad, anti-feminist parts of Twilight gone hay-wire. As one commentor said (I think), Twilight idealizes stalking = love, whereas Nora, the main female character in Hush, Hush knows that Patch's stalking is wrong and makes her uncomfortable. Apparently she tries repeatedly to get the bio teacher to change their seating arrangement, but he won't do it, scoffing at her statements she feels uncomfortable (I want to kill him), and she tells Patch, too, but he still pursues her. To the point that somewhere expelicitly in the book she wonders if he's going to rape her. WTF? This has a happy ending, apparently. They fall in love or whatever. Why is this a best seller about teenage love instead of a best-seller about "WHAT LOVE ISN'T" or "WHAT LOVE SHOULDN'T BE"???
But yes, I extremely dislike books where stalking and ignoring someone's request to back off is okay, it's romantic, it's tough-guy. The sought-after person will soon realize you're soulmates and meant for each other. I hate it more when it seems to "work" and the girl (usually it's the girl) falls for the guy in the end. I also hate it when movies have that kind of plotline. I don't care if it's a "cool, suave" guy going after a "bookish" girl, or a "socially awkward boy" going after a "really popular and hot girl" or gender roles reversed with the girl hunting the guy (though I can't really recall that many off the top of my head. I know "John Tucker Must Die" was more about revenge against a guy who played them all...). It doesn't matter if I'm suppose to root for the socially awkward person to win the popular person and show them that "hey, you're really shallow for thinking I'm not worth your time because I'm lower on the social status ladder than you. I'm a person, too, and I'm deep and quirky and treat you better than the shallow significant others [of the same social strata] you've been with." No... If someone tells you they are not interested in you, or shows it very, very obviously, or does not put forth any effort in talking to you, (rather than you cornering them and making them awkwardly talk back to you because you won't freaking let them be quiet), you should respect that. You should not make things awkward and embarrassing for the both of you for continually pursuing said person and coming up with antics that enroach on their personal space and discomfort them. What happened to respect? Over the years those movies have really started to bug me. Romance =/= wearing down someone's resistance and having them capitulate to date you, even if you do have some good qualities.
bookshop's entry leads to another blog, Fugitivis's "Another post about rape." To basically copy the same sections bookshop thought relevant:
If women are raised being told by parents, teachers, media, peers, and all surrounding social strata that:
- it is not okay to set solid and distinct boundaries and reinforce them immediately and dramatically when crossed (“mean bitch”)
- it is not okay to appear distraught or emotional (“crazy bitch”)
- it is not okay to make personal decisions that the adults or other peers in your life do not agree with, and it is not okay to refuse to explain those decisions to others (“stuck-up bitch”)
- it is not okay to refuse to agree with somebody, over and over and over again (“angry bitch”)
- it is not okay to have (or express) conflicted, fluid, or experimental feelings about yourself, your body, your sexuality, your desires, and your needs (“bitch got daddy issues”)
- it is not okay to use your physical strength (if you have it) to set physical boundaries (“dyke bitch”)
- it is not okay to raise your voice (“shrill bitch”)
- it is not okay to completely and utterly shut down somebody who obviously likes you (“mean dyke/frigid bitch”)
If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways.
And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.
Women who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout “NO” at the top of their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably close.
Women who are taught not to keep arguing are not going to keep saying “NO.”
Women who are taught that their needs and desires are not to be trusted, are fickle and wrong and are not to be interpreted by the woman herself, are not going to know how to argue with “but you liked kissing, I just thought…”
Women who are taught that physical confrontations make them look crazy will not start hitting, kicking, and screaming until it’s too late, if they do at all.
Women who are taught that a display of their emotional state will have them labeled hysterical and crazy (which is how their perception of events will be discounted) will not be willing to run from a room disheveled and screaming and crying.
Women who are taught that certain established boundaries are frowned upon as too rigid and unnecessary are going to find themselves in situations that move further faster before they realize that their first impression was right, and they are in a dangerous room with a dangerous person.
Women who are taught that refusing to flirt back results in an immediately hostile environment will continue to unwillingly and unhappily flirt with somebody who is invading their space and giving them creep alerts.
People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, make obvious signals that they are uninterested in conversation or being in closer physical proximity and are ignored. They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal. They seem normal to women, and they seem normal to men, because we were all raised in the same cultural pond, drinking the same Kool-Aid.
And then, all of a sudden, when women are raped, all these natural and invisible social interactions become evidence that the woman wasn’t truly raped. Because she didn’t fight back, or yell loudly, or run, or kick, or punch. She let him into her room when it was obvious what he wanted. She flirted with him, she kissed him. She stopped saying no, after a while.
These rules for social interactions that women are taught to obey are more than grease for the patriarchy wheel. Women are taught both that these rules will protect them, and that disobeying these rules results in punishment.
She then talks about a scenario of being on a bus and having a guy giving you the eye and two various ways you could react to it - breaking the rules or obeying the rules. This really freaked me out because I remember the one time I was really uncomfortable on a bus to the public library because two guys kept talking at me (Event 3 on the day).
From that day, I wrote:
I hate that I didn't know what to say to make him shut the hell up or leave me alone. I know I could have, or should have, "I really don't feel like talking right now" but I felt so rude when I thought about saying that... Not to mention he was right behind me and I was a bit scared, too, if he'd do anything to me if I turned my back to him (but still leaning against the window). His brother was sitting next to him and their friend across the aisle. A part of me feels it was my fault for smiling and saying "Hey" back to him. Even when he apologized at the end if he was talking my ear off, I just smiled uncomfortably and said "It's okay. I guess I'm just not used to how friendly Midwesterners are." Instead of letting him know how uncomfortable he made me!! I guess I also didn't want to make a scene. >_< I feel like such a failure, a weak female. Bad feminist. I really hope I never see him and his brother around. I can't believe they had the nerve to ask me how often I take the bus. He asked me, also, if I drive around a lot or take the bus, and I said I prefer to take the bus..
I was doing the thing I had been taught, about bullying, or being bothered - "be quiet, don't make a fuss and maybe they'll go away." I also agree that back in anybody's mind when they're cornered like this is "What happens if I refuse them outright? Will it make them so angry they'll do something worse than what they're already doing/planning to do?" And I think that fear makes the cornered people more likely to not make a fuss/"play along" unless they're sure they're safe/there are other people around who would (presumably) care. The other time in 2003 I was alone in a mall and followed around, I kept ducking into high-frequented stores, hung out near the cashiers, or when I had to leave home, booked it down the escalators until I reached the taxi line where a police man was directing traffic/making sure people didn't cut the queue. And even then I was afraid to tell the police officer about the guy who followed me, who pretended he didn't have a watch on him so he could ask me the time. (He had his watch on one wrist under the long-sleeve shirt and I had asked him to show me both wrists.) I thought, at the time, that pointing out to him he was a fool and I wasn't going to fall for his idiotic pick up line was enough. It was just enough for me to be able to get in a taxi that would take me back to where I was staying. I didn't think about the fact that the follower should have been...taught/told his behavior was utterly inappropriate. :-S
It is scary how slippery the slope might be from not saying anything to someone talking to you inappropriately to them trying to cop a feel or a kiss to more. I'd like to think that if someone touched me inappropriately I'd be able to definitively tell them "What the fuck?! NO! Don't do it again!" instead of trying to avoid being rude and trying to explain nicely to them why it was wrong. (I'm not saying that people who have done this are weak.) I'd also like to think I'd have the strength to overcome this...training and push them away physically and be able to be willing to use anything to hurt them and make them realize I was serious about not being touched in a certain way. So far none of my uncomfortable situations have come that far. It might be sickening to say "I'm lucky it hasn't so far" because it makes it seem that everyday carries the active potential of being raped... But figuring out the statistics of rapes on college campuses and worldwide... But if I were ever in these situations...well, it's one of those where I can't say what I'd do until/unless I'm actually there.
A friend and I were talking about our scary run-ins yesterday. Next week is the start of Sexual Assault Awareness Week here, and there are self-defense classes being offered. I don't know if I can go, because of the time committments and projects I have already going on. But I had mentioned it to her and she commented that self-and-physical awareness was probably the biggest help in stranger run-ins (the kind we've had so far, as far as I know, at least). As for bad, inappropriate encounters with people we actually know and hang out with...I have no idea...