I have written before about a couple of incidents that would qualify as sexual assault or sexual harassment in my life. One was by a well respected doctor who forced me to feel his genitalia by pressing his equipment against my hand on the plinth.
But the incidents in my life add up to way more than two. What that tells me is that it doesn't matter a damn if the woman is good looking or young or old or anything. All that matters is that we are female. I was nearly kidnapped at 9 by two men who tried to pull me in to their car. I pulled free and then ran like crazy to get home by the back ways that didn't include roads. I was young when I developed breasts, and I haven't grown any taller since I was 11 so I stood out from most girls my age even though I had not a clue what sex was or much about anything including men's proclivities. In junior high and high school I was subject to not only classmates making comments or playing stupid games like trying to throw wads of paper down my cleavage (and I guarantee I didn't dress like a slut), but teachers would deliberately brush against my breasts. Once I fell out of my chair because the teacher was so aggressively leaning over me. When women have larger breasts (even at 12 I wore a 34C though I was thin and muscular), men go crazy. I was raped at 17 but the guy told me it was my own fault and at that point I probably agreed with him since my self esteem was shattered.
Later on a trip across country when I was 20, I stopped at a motel in Tennessee. When I went into my room, I noticed a sign on the door saying, "Turn this lock if you want to lock out all keys including your own." I thought that was a little weird but since I was traveling alone and had already experienced a variety of bad behaviors, I turned the little knob. At 2 am, someone tried to open my door with a key. I never saw who was there but banging and yelling soon ensued. I thought at one point that the door itself would break but after one final slam and the loud imprecation, "F'N bitch!", my assault stopped. I waited a little while trembling and looking at the windows. Then I packed my suitcase and quickly went to my car and drove away. I didn't call the front desk because the only way the perpetrator could have gotten my key was from the front desk.
I am by no means a movie star though when I was younger I was built like one. But sexual assault isn't about looks, it's about power. It's about the anger of the person who is assaulting you, not about you.
Priscilla, I think 99% of women have been assaulted in 1 way or another. For me, it was a supervisor at WaldenBooks that used to follow me around with a clipboard and flip the top, and kept saying "Put your tit in here, it's a tit-board!" along with other stupid and embarrassing things to female staff and to customers. When I called management to complain, they transferred him to another store, as they had done to put him in our store. Men are weird and sick but we will never change it, we have to protect ourselves and each other. They will never know the pain they cause.
ReplyDeleteIf what Anne says is true, then all of us females really need to stand up for each other regardless of our political persuasion. I love my husband dearly, my teenage girl friends say it's obvious my sons are "woke", but our voices need to join together. Thousand of years ago Aristophanes wrote "Lysistrata". Women need to make some noise in the present era.
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