Have you ever noticed that when a woman is harassed, raped, abused, or otherwise violated that people blame her for it? People often say things like, “She shouldn’t have been drinking at that party,” “She shouldn’t have been so rude to that guy,” “She was wearing a mini skirt at a frat party, what did she expect?” “She sleeps with a lot of guys, you can’t rape the willing.” “She should have stuck with her friends.”
Women have been horrifically abused throughout history. Do a quick Google search of the history of rape, to this day the definition varies and there are still some circumstances where the law doesn’t recognize it as a crime. In recent decades we have made great strides in ranking up there with other human beings (i.e. men) in the eyes of society, the workplace, our private homes, the justice system among other places, but we have a staggeringly long way to go. It’s still difficult for women to obtain restraining orders, our testimony in court in often dismissed and belittled as the rantings of a crazy person and our abusers almost always walk away with a slap on the wrist. We are seen as unreliable witnesses to our own lives; lives that don’t matter as much as a man’s.
In 2016 women still bear the responsibility to not be abused. It’s up to us to change our behavior, change our clothes and change our lifestyle choices in order to avoid attracting the abusers and rapists in the world. We are told we must stay inside, only travel in packs and never go out at night. We are told what to wear, what to say and how to act to not piss off one of society’s madmen. I mean, what’s next? We erase ourselves completely from public life? We constantly here, “Well, there are sickos out there, that’s just how it is, we need to teach women to protect themselves.”
Why are sickos accepted more than women? Why is it that women have to accept that the sickos are here and salivating, but no one has to accept that women are here with a human right to not be violated? Why is that we have to accept a sicko’s right to be a part of society and our right is not protected at all? Why are the sickos’ criminal behavior protected more than our right to be in public? To say that I need to accept that there are sickos in the world and that my behavior/clothing/words/choices bring on the attacks from these assholes is to suggest that their lives are more valuable than mine.
Well, I hereby reserve the right to get completely blitzed and not be violated by anything but a hangover the next day. I reserve the right to choose to breastfeed and not be asking for a verbal attack. I reserve the right to flaunt my cleavage and not be inviting a sexual attack. I reserve the right to be a bitch and not have to “pay for it.” I reserve the right to consent to sex with as many men as I want, droves of them, night after night, and still expect my consent to count.
I expect society to start teaching men not rape. I expect every penny that has gone into teaching women how not to be a victim to go into teaching men not to victimize. I expect abusers to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I expect every man and woman on this planet to support my total and complete right to life in every aspect of that life without judgement or conditions. And until that happens women will continue to be violated because we do not bring these attacks on ourselves.
