So, it has been recently brought to my attention that we live in the fucking stone age.
I honestly can't even begin to describe how infuriated I am by the fact that it's 2013 and women are STILL continuously disrespected in society every single day. It's gotten to the point where it can't even be called disrespect anymore, you know? We might as well be getting spit on every five minutes.
A sixteen year-old girl got drunk at a party. She passed out and was then raped and violated, not just once, but repeatedly, by several boys. And now she's being blamed. The "Steubenville" case. This girl probably woke up the morning of the party and thought, "I'm so excited!", because who doesn't like parties, right? She probably spent all day trying to decide what to wear. She probably knew she looked fantastic. She just wanted to have a good time. I doubt that she ever thought, "You know, there's a possibility that I could have permanent psychological damage after tonight."And now she does.
I can't even write this without crying. Forget for a second that she's a girl. What human deserves that kind of treatment? I'm so upset. This doesn't even have anything to do with feminism for me right now (I'll get into that later) - it has to do with the fact that human beings treated another human being as if she were a fucking thing. Not a human, but an object. And you know what the worst part about it is? Worse than what they did to her, worse than how she feels, worse than all of that? This happens thousands of times every fucking day. Over and over and over. The worst part about it is that all of the things that happened in this one incident are being acted out continuously by heartless humans onto other humans that they treat like objects; like nothing. And the majority of the time, these incidents aren't even reported. That's what I can't get over: that this is something that's normal.
I vow (and have vowed in the past) to never, ever hate men. Because I'm a feminist, and feminists don't hate men or women or any one specific group of people. Feminists are about equality. I always write posts about how awesome women are and how beautiful women are, and the reason I don't write them about men isn't because I don't like men; it's because men know how awesome they are. A man in our society has a thousand times more power than any woman does. I don't know what it was in history (the idea of God being a man is my guess) that made people decide that men were more important or whatever, but it's not okay, you know? Especially in 2013. So, this is me saying to all men: Please use your power and strength in the best ways you possibly can. Women can do so many things for feminism and for ourselves, but nothing is going to really change if men don't listen to us. Please, for the love of everything in the world, listen to what we're saying. Men need feminism just as much as women need feminism. And women need men to want to help. We've got to do this together, guys. I can write as many blog posts about feminism as I want to, but if it's only women reading them, we're not getting the whole of society in on this and that's what we need. It's really discouraging to me that half of the men reading this (if there are any men reading this), don't know who Germaine Greer, Anais Nin or even Gloria Steinem are. Men aren't scared to go to the bathroom alone in fear of someone hiding in there who could easily hurt them. Men aren't scared of wearing short skirts because people assume that they're "asking for it". Look at how these men at this party used their power towards this girl. There's nothing worse to me than seeing such a corrupt group of young people who think this is completely acceptable. How can we let our children grow up in a society like this? People, of all genders, need to be protecting each other.
This is completely scattered and all over the place, but I just have a lot of things to say and I'm too damn angry to put them in a nicer format.
Ladies; I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that we have to deal with this every day. It makes me more upset than you can imagine. On top of everything else in our lives - school, work, kids, finances, etc. - we have to worry about how late it is when we walk home alone at night. In "Vagina", Naomi Wolf talks about how even the smallest sexual threat to a woman can harm her for years. She says that even if a woman is in a situation (fully clothed, with other women) where she feels even slightly sexually threatened, her brain (connected to her vagina and other sexual organs through a vast number of nerve systems) remembers and it's harder for her to enjoy her sexuality in an easy-going way. Women that are intensely sexually abused take years to recover and sometimes, they're never able to have healthy sexual relationships with anyone. The fact that this kind of psychological damage is being blamed on the victim in this case actually makes me want to throw up. Sexual abuse or assault is NEVER the fault of the victim. Ever. Consent is ALWAYS mandatory. Even if you're married, consent is in order. Even if a woman has been saying "yes" all day and then decides on a "no"at the last second, that has to be respected. Why shouldn't we be able to make decisions about what happens to our bodies? Someone else deciding for us doesn't make any sense! We all have brains and we're all extremely capable. I'm so frustrated.
Women are goddesses. In ancient India, scripts were written about the importance of female pleasure. It was said that women carried a sort of psychological and physical medicine in their mouths, breasts, and vaginas and in order for men to live a full and healthy life, they had to give as much pleasure as possible to the women that they loved just to receive even an ounce of the goodness that a woman carries in her. Isn't that beautiful? I just don't know of anything more fascinating and lovely than the body and soul of a woman. We used to be so respected and important. Female sexuality used to be seen as a sort of mysterious gift to the world. Our bodies can do amazing things, you know? We can carry life for nine months. And we're being called sluts and hoes and being put into situations we don't want to be in and being forced to have sexual confrontations with which we're not comfortable. It's so sad. But, even through all of this bullshit, I know that I'm a goddess. I know that you're a goddess. I know your mother is a goddess, and your grandmother too. And the most important thing that we, as women, can do is to never, ever forget that. Always keep it in your heart, okay? Even when you're being called fat, or ugly, or you're getting paid less than your male co-workers. Be sure to tell your fellow women that they're intelligent and incredible and you admire their uteruses. We're amazing human beings and even though we don't always get the respect we deserve from society and from others, the least we can do is remember that and hold it dear to us. We deserve at least that.
Tell every single person you know about feminism. That's the only way it's going to work.
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