RAPE CULTURE DEFINITELY IS NO MYTH
WASHINGTON, DC, Oct. 7, 2018 – I just watched a YouTube video by Steven Crowder. It was entitled “Rape Culture is a Myth: Change My Mind”. It nearly made my blood boil. He totally separated rape from sexual assault, as if there was absolutely NO connection between the two. To me, this completely invalidated his argument. He has completely missed the point of the term “rape culture.” Men so often don’t realise or believe that they have done anything wrong and have no idea how what they said or did made a woman feel bad.
The #metoo movement has become such a hot button issue in 2018. As a woman I am having a great deal of mixed emotions about this. I have read a number of articles that talk about the statistics and I am not sure that there really can be any accurate numbers. I am quite sure that I am not the only woman who has been sexually harassed during her lifetime and not reported it. I have experienced things throughout my life that I have kept quiet about because I felt that I would not be taken seriously, or would be blamed for what happened. I have on occasions reported things, only to be pretty much blown off by the men in uniforms who were supposed to be there to help and protect me.
My experiences began at the age of twelve. At the time I was living in Germany with my parents. There was an outdoor public swimming pool not far from home, and we went there often in the summer months. I was a fairly tall 12-year-old at 5ft 6in. I guess I could have been mistaken for a girl in her mid-teens. I was in the pool by myself, my parents were taking a break and sitting on the grass not too far away. I had just surfaced after going for an underwater swim and was trying to clear the water out of my eyes, when suddenly someone grabbed my butt. I turned defensively, trying to lash out, but the person had turned quickly and was swimming away. All I could see was his dark hair, and I could not identify my attacker. The pool was very busy and he quickly disappeared into a large group of people.
On this occasion I did tell my parents, and my father then went into the pool with me for a while. He is a very big man, no-one was coming near me as long as I stayed close to him. And of course, nothing happened and eventually we left to go home.
I soon learned that there are a lot of predators out there. By the time I was 15 I found that I could not walk down the street, especially past a construction site, without the workmen wolf whistling and cat calling, especially when I was in school uniform. At such a young age it is not just unnerving, but also confusing. Young girls are experiencing a lot of changes in their bodies at that age, and feel very inexperienced, confused and vulnerable.
Walking to the bus stop for school one foggy morning, in England, I took the shortcut across a playing field that was surrounded by houses. I always felt quite safe taking that route, and the mist wasn’t that thick — at least, not at first. It wasn’t until I got half way across the field that I realised the mist was closing in on me. I could no longer see the houses, but I knew I wasn’t too far from the main road on the other side, so I kept going. Suddenly, a man appeared a few feet away from me, wearing a dark raincoat. He opened the raincoat and too my shock, he was naked underneath it. The fog was thick and I didn’t know which way to run; my mind and body were frozen in that moment. I could not react. I couldn’t even scream. Just as suddenly as he appeared he turned and ran away, swallowed up in the soupy haze.
I didn’t know what to do. Which way should I go? What if I ran into him again? What if he was waiting for me? Just because I couldn’t see him, how did I know he wasn’t just a few paces away from me? After a few minutes nothing had happened, so I decided to try and make it to the main road. There was a police station near the bus stop, so I went there. I knew I would miss my bus and be late for school, but I also knew I needed to report the incident, and I was badly shaken. I really didn’t expect the reaction that I got at the station. The officer I spoke to couldn’t have been less concerned. No, I could not describe the man. No, I didn’t know which way he went.
The brief interview didn’t go well. I could only hope that they would at least put out a warning to people living in the area, but I never heard anything. I was late for school, and instead of being concerned, my teachers acted as though I was not telling the truth. I was attending an all girls school, with all women teachers. I found it very confusing. Shouldn’t they have been shocked and concerned? Nobody seemed to be, they were only annoyed with me for being late. So when I went home I decided that I would not say anything to my parents about it either. And I never walked across that field again. I took the long route along the streets to the bus stop.
This was just the beginning for me, and similar experiences have been recounted to me by just about every woman I have known throughout my life. Many woman will tell you that the harassment has practically been on a daily basis, not just isolated incidents. I could write about the more serious assaults that I have experienced, but that would take a toll on me emotionally. It is enough to say that I — like many, many more women — have learned to suppress my feelings, not to talk about them with anyone, and certainly not to seek help or report the incidents to the police or anyone else. I too have heard quite enough of the “what did you do to encourage the harassment/attack?” questions. Did I make him angry? How was I dressed? We all know the drill. And those of you who are women reading this also know the feelings of confusion, shame, fear, frustration and anger.
I know what it is like not to want to go out of the house and run an important errand because it meant having to go in an area, like downtown, and be catcalled and harassed from one end of the street to the next. Or to turn around and go back rather than walk into an area alone because one or more men were there, acting in a way that made me feel unsafe or suspicious. I often went for long walks and would take the dog with me (I had a series of big dogs with very protective attitudes) and eventually even carried a stun gun. My experiences, and those of other women, warranted me having that level of protection with me.
A lot of self-examination, introspection, and discussion needs to be done. If you are a man, ask yourself – what do you need to do to protect yourself from sexual harassment or attack? Most men can’t answer that question. The thought has never occurred to them, because it has never happened. Ask yourself how would you want other men to behave towards your daughter, wife, mother, sister, aunt. Ask yourself what you need to say to your sons, brothers, and male friends about respecting women. Understand that if a woman is dressed in a plain drab outfit, she is just as likely to be raped or assaulted as if she were dressed in a sexy outfit. Whereas a man can walk down the street ripped, shirtless, in tight fitting jeans, and no-one will bother him. Sexual assault begins with verbal attacks. For goodness sake stop saying the #metoo movement has made you afraid to approach or say anything to a woman. That is not the problem. The problem is in HOW you approach us. Give some serious, soul-searching thought to THAT – please. The #metoo movement is not an attack on men. It is asking men to stop diminishing and attacking women. And very importantly, it is asking men to LISTEN to us.
I AM a survivor, #METOO.
