Anti-Bullying Month: A Thing I Wish
So, this Anti-Bullying Month we are having a cultural Moment about sexual harassment in the workplace, only instead of women in $industry, it's beautiful young women who one might think had a sense of self-worth and power already. Surprise! Being in your early 20s is a bitch, no matter how gorgeous you are our how sure of yourself you may appear to be. And when your industry is owned by a few very powerful people, the sense that protecting yourself may mean destroying your plan of life gets all caught up with the other things that women go through because patriarchy.
I'm not -- repeat, not -- making light of any of the horror of being a victim of Harvey the Pig. It's a miserable tale all the way around. But there is one thing I wish...
I wish that when we speak or write about rape, abuse, and harassment we would stop using possessive pronouns.
I was assaulted in my room at college, but the person who did that is not my attacker. I refuse to have an attacker. I was bullied at school, but I refuse to have a bully, or multiple bullies. I may have been a jerk, but I didn't make other children hit me, spit at me, knock me down, throw rocks at me, or call me names. They did that. I was not complicit; I told and told and told. (In some cases, the teachers could and did know what was happening by looking out the window.) But even if I had somehow begged the person who assaulted me to do so, the choice, and the ownership, would have been his.
Similarly, Weinstein and O'Reilly and Trump are not now the responsibility of the women whom they have harmed. Ladies, let's stop taking ownership of this garbage!