No, you shut up.
(Let me preface this post by saying it's pretty long. It's sad. It's convoluted and opinionated and exhausted, but it's something that's been weighing on me heavily lately, and I think it's about time I said it. )
I've been thinking a lot lately.
Maybe it's because I took so many feminist-themed courses this semester, or maybe it's because I'm done trying to reconcile what's right with what so many others try to pretend is "just how things are," but I've had enough of this crap.
It's amazing that as far as women have come, there's still such a long way to go. The word "repress" sounds so self-righteous and feminazi-ish and dramatic, but I don't know what else to use here because honestly? We have this idea that we're liberated and equal, but at the end of the day, how true is that?
Of course, I'm not blind. We're far better off than hundreds of years ago, than the 1950s, hell, than twenty years ago, by leaps and bounds. Women's rights are supposedly a thing of the past, something we succeeded at. After all, aren't there women in the White House? Women doctors? Women CEOs? I myself have been known to roll my eyes at feminists who jump down everyone's throat about how this little thing represses them or that little nuance is sexist or how this man is a pig for this banal reason and how if women ran the world it would be a magical land full of wonder and magic and magic and wonder. I mean, that's not feminism. That's just another form of sexism. Let's not lose sight of the bigger picture, after all: women and men can be equally stupid.
The problem I've been having lately is the fact that the cycle of abuse is still so prevalent, that a woman's worth is still so based on whether or not she has sex appeal, that our culture forces impossible stereotypes and images down our throats and expects us not to choke. Expects us to meet those standards. I feel that these things are especially prevalent in college, where you can't walk down a dorm hallway without seeing "No Fat Chicks Allowed" scribbled on someone's message board, go to a party without some drunken frat boy leering at you, or take three steps on campus without getting bombarded with stereotypes. Guys wearing board shorts and Abrecrombie wolf-whistle, get in your way late at night to make you uncomfortable, talk about nothing but how much beer they drank and how laid they got.
That's why anger brews in the pit of my stomach when people say feminism is useless, just a fad. That those feminists (and not just the extremists) need to stop harping on about how bad it is and shut up with their agendas and their hysteria. Women are equal, now!
No. In a society where a guy is a god if he has sex and a girl is a whore, we are not equal. In a society where women appear on the cover of magazines for being sexy and men appear on the cover of magazines for being successful, we are not equal. In a society where a man in power is inspiring and intelligent and a woman in power is a bitch or slept her way to the top, we are not equal. In a society where one in four women has been raped, we are not equal.
You hear about girls getting roofied at parties, raped. Girls waking up and not remembering a thing about the night before. Girls getting attacked walking down the street, out of the grocery store, through a parking garage.
Do you know how often I've heard, "Well, what else did she expect?"
You know, I don't give a damn what she was wearing. I don't care if she was scantily clad or alone when she knew better or not paying attention. I don't care if she was really drunk. I don't care if the guy was really drunk.
If she said no, then fuck, she meant it. If she didn't say anything, that didn't mean, "Go right on ahead." If she was unconscious, then fuck you.
In two of my more serious relationships, I have been pretty relentelessly pressured for sex. I am still a virgin, a fact that I can't mention without getting cast as a naive little girl who doesn't know anything about "the real world." Either that, or being told that I need to just "loosen up." Of course, keep in mind, if I had caved in and perhaps slept with these two guys, I would then, in all likelihood, be called a slut.
In one of these relationships, the pressure got pretty bad. I was told that I "owed" it to him. That I'm a tease. That I need to let go, that I need to get over my reservations and give it up. It ruined our relationship, which wouldn't have lasted any way, but it was the catalyst. It was all he could think or talk about any more, and no matter what I said, the fear or anxiety or worry I expressed, it had absolutely no effect other than destroying what we had. The irony was that I would have been so much more likely to have sex (or be intimate at all) with him if he'd let me reach it in my own time, if he hadn't kept asking and asking when I kept saying no. At one point, even though he was a great guy who really did care about me in every sense, I actually had to fight him off when saying no a thousand times and practically sobbing didn't work. He later apologized and swore he wouldn't have touched me and that he'd just gotten carried away, but it was one of the scariest moments of my life simply because I realized how much stronger he was, that he could have, even though I know he wouldn't have. He got caught up in a moment and stopped himself when he realized he was wrong.
The problem is, not all guys are like my ex. In fact, a lot of them aren't. A lot of them don't stop.
I have two stories I want to talk about. Two stories that have affected me, made me sob, kept me awake at night. Two stories that I think everyone needs to hear.
This first one, I just heard recently in my Performing Voices of Women class. Our final projects could be about anything we wanted. Some girls chose women's rights. Some chose comedy. Some chose story-telling. Some chose dance. They were all interesting and beautiful and complicated, but everyone was wholy unprepared for what was coming.
A beautiful girl who had always been funny, bright, intelligent, strong, and very comfortable with her sexuality got up in front of the class and did what was single-handedly the bravest thing I have ever witnessed.
She told us that she's only 22 years old, and she's been raped not once, but twice. She doesn't tell people this, she says, because a lot of the time, people don't believe her. Either that, or they ask her why she let it happen again. Or they don't understand. Or they write it off. Or they call her damaged. Her own father called her dramatic and told her she didn't know what she was talking about when she finally got the courage to tell him.
The first time she was raped, she was six years old. The fifteen-year-old son of her daycare provider took her up to his bedroom and told her he had something to show her. She tells people she was molested, because it's a little easier to hear, but he raped her in such a fashion that she was completely torn up. When she tried to lose her virginity about twelve years later, she found she couldn't, because her boyfriend couldn't penetrate. She had to go to a gynecologist and find out that because of the way the scar tissue from her rape had healed, she needed surgery to correct the problem. To have her first time, she needed surgery.
The second time, she was my age - a sophomore in college. She went out on a date with a kid in her class who seemed nice, funny, smart. When they went back to his place and fooled around a little, she told him to stop once it started getting too intense. She told him she wanted to wait to have sex with him.
He told her she had to. She fought like hell, to the point where she had his skin and blood under her fingernails from clawing at him so hard.
He raped her anyway.
On the drive home, she called her ex-boyfriend, sobbing, and told him what happened. She asked what she should do, if she should get a rape kit, go to the police - and he told her to go home. Take a shower. Forget it ever happened.
And she did.
She sat next to her rapist in class the rest of the semester and never said a word to anybody. Her ex-boyfriend later told her that he thought she was just being dramatic, maybe trying to win him back through sympathy. Because after all, he told her, how could it happen twice?
This girl, who stood calmly in front of my entire class without shedding a tear, watched us all as we sobbed for her. She told us she wasn't afraid to walk the streets. That she wasn't going to dress in baggy clothes or hide from men. That she wanted to live her life and not let her trauma define her. She says in the past, she hasn't wanted to tell her boyfriends about what's happened to her because she's afraid they won't want to have sex with her since she's supposed to be "damaged" or have issues in the bedroom. She hasn't wanted their fear or pity. But now, she told all of us, she's not afraid anymore. She's done with that. She's restoring her voice to history, and she's sure as hell done being quiet.
When she finished, the applause was thunderous. We cried, hugged her, told her thank you. Thank you for trusting us, thank you for telling us, thank you for giving us this - because what she went through should not have happened, but it did, and she was still able to talk. The men, and in some cases women, who had tried to silence her and break her down didn't stand a chance in the end.
This next story is more personal. I've mentioned in here before, very briefly, when it happened, but it's time to bring it up again because it's not really over.
My friend Elaine* (names are changed since I made this entry public) had a boyfriend, Jack*, our senior year of high school who was, quite frankly, one of the scariest people I've ever met. He could go from charming and funny one second to thunderously angry and terrifying the next. He hit her. He hit some of our friends to keep them from saying anything. He raped her. He verbally abused Elaine to the point where my once strong and opinionated friend barely said a word. When a few of my friends and I finally went forward to the principal and told them what was happening, my tough ROTC, burly lumberjack-esque friend Zack called me sobbing, warning me to be careful because Jack knew who had turned him in and he was going to "get us."
Jack didn't get us. He got restraining orders from a few of our friends. He was forbidden to talk to us at school. He was put on probation, suspended from school. The worst part was when some of my supposed friends took Jack's side and told us we were wrong to have turned him in, or said Elaine was asking for it - that somehow, she deserved it.
Elaine began to recover slowly. She never pressed charges or got the courage to face him down, and only now has started therapy. What's been hard for me to hear about is that some of our friends have started to forget what he did - they've accepted him back into the group at times, told Elaine not to say anything when she gets upset that he shows up at parties. Told her it's ancient history.
Two years later, and Jack still gets to terrify her. Still gets to show up and act like he belongs. Still makes her feel worthless.
I'm so tired of it--all of it. I'm tired of hearing these heartbreaking stories, of witnessing them, of learning that as much as it pains me to say it, I live in a world where it's dangerous to be a woman. I'm scared to walk the short distance from class to my car when it gets dark because there are too many dark, secluded areas on campus. I know I am physically weaker than most men, even if I am tall. I know to have my mace out when I walk in a parking garage. I know to pretend to talk on my cell phone when I feel uncomfortable walking by myself. I know to avert my eyes when men whistle at me or make lewd comments.
I know, by the sheer volume of violent sexual attacks in Boulder, most of them around or on my campus, that my city and school are not safe places for me on my own. I also know, by the cavalier attitude so many of my classmates and others display, that not nearly enough people care that this is happening.
The city, the school, the state, the country - hell, the world - is full of too many people who look the other way, who are likely to say, "She deserved it," or write off girls with horror stories or joke about rape or tell a girl who wants to talk about feminism to be quiet.
Well you know what? I think I'm going to take a page from a beautiful, strong, and incredibly courageous woman and say, hell no. I am done being quiet, and I am done ducking my head in the streets and I am done feeling ashamed. I am done with you placing all my worth in my sexuality. I am done with allowing you to do it to my friends and sisters.
I am done accepting that the world has to be this way.
I've been thinking a lot lately.
Maybe it's because I took so many feminist-themed courses this semester, or maybe it's because I'm done trying to reconcile what's right with what so many others try to pretend is "just how things are," but I've had enough of this crap.
It's amazing that as far as women have come, there's still such a long way to go. The word "repress" sounds so self-righteous and feminazi-ish and dramatic, but I don't know what else to use here because honestly? We have this idea that we're liberated and equal, but at the end of the day, how true is that?
Of course, I'm not blind. We're far better off than hundreds of years ago, than the 1950s, hell, than twenty years ago, by leaps and bounds. Women's rights are supposedly a thing of the past, something we succeeded at. After all, aren't there women in the White House? Women doctors? Women CEOs? I myself have been known to roll my eyes at feminists who jump down everyone's throat about how this little thing represses them or that little nuance is sexist or how this man is a pig for this banal reason and how if women ran the world it would be a magical land full of wonder and magic and magic and wonder. I mean, that's not feminism. That's just another form of sexism. Let's not lose sight of the bigger picture, after all: women and men can be equally stupid.
The problem I've been having lately is the fact that the cycle of abuse is still so prevalent, that a woman's worth is still so based on whether or not she has sex appeal, that our culture forces impossible stereotypes and images down our throats and expects us not to choke. Expects us to meet those standards. I feel that these things are especially prevalent in college, where you can't walk down a dorm hallway without seeing "No Fat Chicks Allowed" scribbled on someone's message board, go to a party without some drunken frat boy leering at you, or take three steps on campus without getting bombarded with stereotypes. Guys wearing board shorts and Abrecrombie wolf-whistle, get in your way late at night to make you uncomfortable, talk about nothing but how much beer they drank and how laid they got.
That's why anger brews in the pit of my stomach when people say feminism is useless, just a fad. That those feminists (and not just the extremists) need to stop harping on about how bad it is and shut up with their agendas and their hysteria. Women are equal, now!
No. In a society where a guy is a god if he has sex and a girl is a whore, we are not equal. In a society where women appear on the cover of magazines for being sexy and men appear on the cover of magazines for being successful, we are not equal. In a society where a man in power is inspiring and intelligent and a woman in power is a bitch or slept her way to the top, we are not equal. In a society where one in four women has been raped, we are not equal.
You hear about girls getting roofied at parties, raped. Girls waking up and not remembering a thing about the night before. Girls getting attacked walking down the street, out of the grocery store, through a parking garage.
Do you know how often I've heard, "Well, what else did she expect?"
You know, I don't give a damn what she was wearing. I don't care if she was scantily clad or alone when she knew better or not paying attention. I don't care if she was really drunk. I don't care if the guy was really drunk.
If she said no, then fuck, she meant it. If she didn't say anything, that didn't mean, "Go right on ahead." If she was unconscious, then fuck you.
In two of my more serious relationships, I have been pretty relentelessly pressured for sex. I am still a virgin, a fact that I can't mention without getting cast as a naive little girl who doesn't know anything about "the real world." Either that, or being told that I need to just "loosen up." Of course, keep in mind, if I had caved in and perhaps slept with these two guys, I would then, in all likelihood, be called a slut.
In one of these relationships, the pressure got pretty bad. I was told that I "owed" it to him. That I'm a tease. That I need to let go, that I need to get over my reservations and give it up. It ruined our relationship, which wouldn't have lasted any way, but it was the catalyst. It was all he could think or talk about any more, and no matter what I said, the fear or anxiety or worry I expressed, it had absolutely no effect other than destroying what we had. The irony was that I would have been so much more likely to have sex (or be intimate at all) with him if he'd let me reach it in my own time, if he hadn't kept asking and asking when I kept saying no. At one point, even though he was a great guy who really did care about me in every sense, I actually had to fight him off when saying no a thousand times and practically sobbing didn't work. He later apologized and swore he wouldn't have touched me and that he'd just gotten carried away, but it was one of the scariest moments of my life simply because I realized how much stronger he was, that he could have, even though I know he wouldn't have. He got caught up in a moment and stopped himself when he realized he was wrong.
The problem is, not all guys are like my ex. In fact, a lot of them aren't. A lot of them don't stop.
I have two stories I want to talk about. Two stories that have affected me, made me sob, kept me awake at night. Two stories that I think everyone needs to hear.
This first one, I just heard recently in my Performing Voices of Women class. Our final projects could be about anything we wanted. Some girls chose women's rights. Some chose comedy. Some chose story-telling. Some chose dance. They were all interesting and beautiful and complicated, but everyone was wholy unprepared for what was coming.
A beautiful girl who had always been funny, bright, intelligent, strong, and very comfortable with her sexuality got up in front of the class and did what was single-handedly the bravest thing I have ever witnessed.
She told us that she's only 22 years old, and she's been raped not once, but twice. She doesn't tell people this, she says, because a lot of the time, people don't believe her. Either that, or they ask her why she let it happen again. Or they don't understand. Or they write it off. Or they call her damaged. Her own father called her dramatic and told her she didn't know what she was talking about when she finally got the courage to tell him.
The first time she was raped, she was six years old. The fifteen-year-old son of her daycare provider took her up to his bedroom and told her he had something to show her. She tells people she was molested, because it's a little easier to hear, but he raped her in such a fashion that she was completely torn up. When she tried to lose her virginity about twelve years later, she found she couldn't, because her boyfriend couldn't penetrate. She had to go to a gynecologist and find out that because of the way the scar tissue from her rape had healed, she needed surgery to correct the problem. To have her first time, she needed surgery.
The second time, she was my age - a sophomore in college. She went out on a date with a kid in her class who seemed nice, funny, smart. When they went back to his place and fooled around a little, she told him to stop once it started getting too intense. She told him she wanted to wait to have sex with him.
He told her she had to. She fought like hell, to the point where she had his skin and blood under her fingernails from clawing at him so hard.
He raped her anyway.
On the drive home, she called her ex-boyfriend, sobbing, and told him what happened. She asked what she should do, if she should get a rape kit, go to the police - and he told her to go home. Take a shower. Forget it ever happened.
And she did.
She sat next to her rapist in class the rest of the semester and never said a word to anybody. Her ex-boyfriend later told her that he thought she was just being dramatic, maybe trying to win him back through sympathy. Because after all, he told her, how could it happen twice?
This girl, who stood calmly in front of my entire class without shedding a tear, watched us all as we sobbed for her. She told us she wasn't afraid to walk the streets. That she wasn't going to dress in baggy clothes or hide from men. That she wanted to live her life and not let her trauma define her. She says in the past, she hasn't wanted to tell her boyfriends about what's happened to her because she's afraid they won't want to have sex with her since she's supposed to be "damaged" or have issues in the bedroom. She hasn't wanted their fear or pity. But now, she told all of us, she's not afraid anymore. She's done with that. She's restoring her voice to history, and she's sure as hell done being quiet.
When she finished, the applause was thunderous. We cried, hugged her, told her thank you. Thank you for trusting us, thank you for telling us, thank you for giving us this - because what she went through should not have happened, but it did, and she was still able to talk. The men, and in some cases women, who had tried to silence her and break her down didn't stand a chance in the end.
This next story is more personal. I've mentioned in here before, very briefly, when it happened, but it's time to bring it up again because it's not really over.
My friend Elaine* (names are changed since I made this entry public) had a boyfriend, Jack*, our senior year of high school who was, quite frankly, one of the scariest people I've ever met. He could go from charming and funny one second to thunderously angry and terrifying the next. He hit her. He hit some of our friends to keep them from saying anything. He raped her. He verbally abused Elaine to the point where my once strong and opinionated friend barely said a word. When a few of my friends and I finally went forward to the principal and told them what was happening, my tough ROTC, burly lumberjack-esque friend Zack called me sobbing, warning me to be careful because Jack knew who had turned him in and he was going to "get us."
Jack didn't get us. He got restraining orders from a few of our friends. He was forbidden to talk to us at school. He was put on probation, suspended from school. The worst part was when some of my supposed friends took Jack's side and told us we were wrong to have turned him in, or said Elaine was asking for it - that somehow, she deserved it.
Elaine began to recover slowly. She never pressed charges or got the courage to face him down, and only now has started therapy. What's been hard for me to hear about is that some of our friends have started to forget what he did - they've accepted him back into the group at times, told Elaine not to say anything when she gets upset that he shows up at parties. Told her it's ancient history.
Two years later, and Jack still gets to terrify her. Still gets to show up and act like he belongs. Still makes her feel worthless.
I'm so tired of it--all of it. I'm tired of hearing these heartbreaking stories, of witnessing them, of learning that as much as it pains me to say it, I live in a world where it's dangerous to be a woman. I'm scared to walk the short distance from class to my car when it gets dark because there are too many dark, secluded areas on campus. I know I am physically weaker than most men, even if I am tall. I know to have my mace out when I walk in a parking garage. I know to pretend to talk on my cell phone when I feel uncomfortable walking by myself. I know to avert my eyes when men whistle at me or make lewd comments.
I know, by the sheer volume of violent sexual attacks in Boulder, most of them around or on my campus, that my city and school are not safe places for me on my own. I also know, by the cavalier attitude so many of my classmates and others display, that not nearly enough people care that this is happening.
The city, the school, the state, the country - hell, the world - is full of too many people who look the other way, who are likely to say, "She deserved it," or write off girls with horror stories or joke about rape or tell a girl who wants to talk about feminism to be quiet.
Well you know what? I think I'm going to take a page from a beautiful, strong, and incredibly courageous woman and say, hell no. I am done being quiet, and I am done ducking my head in the streets and I am done feeling ashamed. I am done with you placing all my worth in my sexuality. I am done with allowing you to do it to my friends and sisters.
I am done accepting that the world has to be this way.