So, I don’t know why, but it seems like so many things I have seen in social media about women lately have really made me angry. There’s a bizarre whirlpool of ideas being tossed about where women, sexual autonomy, body image, and relationships with men are concerned. There are so many messages being put out into the public landscape that the core issue seems to be getting lost.
As women, we think of ourselves as equals. We believe that we have a right to an equal shot in the world. No more. No less. But there are plenty of messages being sent out everyday that tell a very different story.
I noticed a couple of posts by a popular women’s page on Facebook that truly made me cringe. Both were about what women needed to do with their appearance in order to attract men. The sad thing? The same page probably posted some bullshit essay about women’s empowerment and independence on the same day.
On an almost daily basis, I see posts about incidents in which women have had near misses with overly pursuant men, or have been assaulted by men they knew and thought they could trust. These posts usually talk about how we need to do something about rape culture, and teach men that unless a woman enthusiastically responds “yes” to their advances, or sexual overtures, they need to back the fuck off.
And yet, there’s still a general tone deafness about the idea that women shouldn’t bear the brunt of teaching those preying upon them not to prey upon them. It seems like we all learn what the word “no” means from a pretty early age. I cannot even begin to count the number of times in a day that I tell my four-year-old daughter “no”. I can’t imagine the parent of a four-year-old boy wouldn’t say the same.
But here we still are. Here we still are talking about men who don’t know how to take “no” for an answer when it comes from a woman. And here we still are, telling women how to attract the attention of men. Are we crazy?
How many times in the case of sexual assault is the question about what the woman was wearing still considered legitimate? How many times in the case of sexual violence is the woman blamed because she responded to her attacker in too friendly a manner, and somehow led him to believe she was willing?
On the one hand, we need to learn what it takes to be attractive enough to get a man’s attention, on the other, if that man decides to rape or kill us because we don’t want to have sex with him, it might be our fault. If we attract a man, and discover that he’s just not a good match, we are a “bitch” or a “tease” if we don’t let him have sex with us. If we get raped, or we do like him enough to have sex with him, and we get pregnant, we are somehow more responsible for that unplanned pregnancy than he is. Literally no matter the circumstances, as soon as a man ejaculates inside us—everything else is our responsibility—our fault—and we are not supposed to have a choice from that point on.
The disconnect is maddening.
Another infuriating reality? Unless our attacker’s skin color is brown, he’s probably not going to face real consequences, and we are probably not ever going to get justice. And right now, if he is brown, an orange man is going to exploit that crime to fit a dishonest and hate-filled narrative that seeks to keep his followers continuously distracted from reality.
The old trope of the brown man attacking the white woman because he is a “savage” is about so much more than the brown man being a savage. It’s about the perceived ownership of the woman. When your property has been sullied or damaged by a brown man, it is treated as the equivalent of someone putting a dent in your car. From that point forward, the wreck is listed on the title. Or if as a woman you get pregnant without being properly “purchased” you are a “lemon”.
The brown man—the savage—must be punished. The damaged property cannot be resold. But somehow, the white rapist or murderer was a fine and upstanding human until something in him just snapped, or until that woman taunted him with a pleasant smile or too much cleavage, only to dash his hopes and leave him with blue balls.
Here’s the thing—it doesn’t matter what country or color the violence comes from. As a victim, it doesn’t matter what color or nationality you are—granted, if you’re brown, you probably know that reporting being assaulted is about as useful as trying to fill a bucket with a hole. It isn’t the country or color that defines the attack—it’s the evil, and it’s the sense of male entitlement. It’s the idea that your body is not yours, and your protest is meaningless.
When I was about 15, I had a boyfriend. We had written a few raunchy teenage “love notes” back and forth to each other. We hadn’t acted on any of the things in those notes. But my stepfather happened upon one of them, read it, and offered to show me some of the things I seemed to be curious about. He worked nights, and slept during the day. While my mom was at work, and my sister was down at the neighbor’s playing, he pulled me into bed with him where he was wearing nothing, and I froze, and tried over and over to get away—for hours. From there, his hands always seemed to find their way up my shirt when we were alone. I started wearing a bra to bed, because he would visit my room when he got home from work in the wee hours of the morning. I don’t want to talk about the other things. He started to monitor all of my phone calls, control all of my outings away from the house, my clothing, my hair, and even spied on me while I was at school.
He decided when I was sixteen, and would soon be getting my drivers license that he would legally adopt me so I would have his last name. His excuse was that it would just make things “easier”. He also insisted that my first name be legally changed from my given name of “Sammi” to Samantha. It was a more proper name than the one my unrefined teenage mother had given me. At this point, he “showed” me things I had seemed curious about almost everyday. And when those adoption papers were signed, and my name was changed, I belonged to him. I was his property. He was entitled to me.
He was white. He beat my mother. He had guns. I was a terrified child, who genuinely believed he would kill everyone in our house. And when I finally got released from his ownership, he received no punishment, and I was disowned. I was damaged property. I was either lying, or to blame.
Violence and sexual crime against women is not about violence or sex. It’s not about the physical pleasure derived from the act. It’s about the power and control over another human being, whom you feel entitled to use and/or destroy. It’s about owning something you consider to be an object—a vessel or a target.
And our society as a whole reinforces that belief in almost every way.
Our patriarchal religions reinforce the idea of the man as head of the household, and that women are supposed to submit to their authority. It may be that the idea of a man being the protector and spiritual leader is put forth in scripture, and religious texts, but men have so often accepted this as authority and power over us. Our legal system seeks to deprive women of the right to own their sexuality and their bodies. Lawmakers seek to make contraceptives and reproductive choice less accessible for women, while at the same time taking no action against men owning and controlling what they do sexually at all. Men are allowed to seek the pleasures of sex inside or outside of marriage with no consequences. And if they are physically unable to seek that pleasure, they can easily access medical treatment to assist them—no judgment, no hindrance, no strings.
Women, on the other hand, are castigated for having sex outside of marriage. Women are trash if they become pregnant outside of marriage. Women are considered frigid and unfriendly if they don’t smile or if they aren’t responsive, even to men they do not know. Women are frequently blamed for men raping them. They were someplace they should not have been. They were drinking. They were wearing revealing clothing. They smiled at the man from across the room. They said “no”, but the man didn’t believe it, and she didn’t fight him off, or clamp her legs shut.
The truth? We don’t have an immigration problem. We don’t have a problem of skin color, religious background, or nationality causing one man to be more violent than another. We don’t have a problem with women being overly promiscuous, confusing to men, indecisive about not wanting sex, or just being regretful and looking for someone to pin it on.
What we do have is a pervasive problem with men who believe that women are somehow theirs. We have a problem with men deciding it’s their right to take what they want—even if that means they destroy what they are taking. We have a problem with men believing that masculinity means they aire in control of the women in their orbit. We have a problem with men who don’t like hearing the word “no” or hearing that we don’t want them, or want to submit to them.
We have a problem with men who believe that any connection with a woman—even a fleeting glance—is a transaction. It’s a transaction, and that woman is now his possession—his property. That’s the actual problem.
Thank you for writing this. <3
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