I have gotten used to men looking at me, sometimes openly, sometimes from the corners of their eyes when they think I cannot see them. It is sad, but I am used to leering, to staring, to muffled laughter, to uninvited touching while walking into dark rooms or down well lit streets. It’s…
More Women Need to Learn to Say NO!
Sounds simple doesn’t it? But that’s how insidious gender conditioning and gender scripts can be. The woman… yields. The man….pursues…. and pursues… until the woman yields. And we grow up believing that this is the way it is supposed to me. In the old movies, the woman spurs the man but then he grabs her and kisses her. And she yields. And it’s played as romantic. The woman who doesn’t want to dance with the guy is being a ‘witch’,as if the role of the woman is always to protect the man’s ego. Smile when he makes a sneering comment about your body.
It’s the way women are taught how to be good, acceptable. And being ‘good’ is a particular burden women face. The ‘bad woman’ is the source of all that is wrong with society; from delinquent kids to deadbeat dads, to being murdered by your husband/boyfriend.
This is why the girl doesn’t know if she’s been raped. Because she said ‘no’. But she didn’t fight. And she said ‘I don’t want to do this’ but she still let her boyfriend take off her clothes. And in the end the story will be told that this proves she really wanted it. Or at the least, it wasn’t that bad.
You don’t have to be good. You don’t have to be nice. And you are not alone. And it is not your fault.