After reading/hearing a series of stories in the news this month, on both NPR and in The Washington Post, I find myself in a state of frustration toward our "fairer sex". Here are three examples:
"Female Veterans Breaking the Silence, Beating Trauma" from NPR: Tell Me More guest host Allison Keyes interviewed U.S. Air Force veteran Lisa Boiling, whose post-traumatic stress disorder developed after she was sexually assaulted by a male service member . She was forced out of the service after the assault, because she didn't want to go back on base and face her attacker, and she didn't feel she could tell anyone about it. Dr. Sonja Batten, psychologist with the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, said 22 percent of female veterans who seek treatment from the VA reported experiencing sexual trauma during their military career, in contrast to 1 percent of male veterans.
"D.C. man charged with hate crime against lesbian" from The Washington Post: After a group of five lesbians rebuffed the advances of several men who approached them outside a 7-Eleven, the men followed, shouting homophobic slurs at them. One man struck one of the women, Yazzmen Morse, knocking her down. Morse said she saw another man "punching her friends in the face one after another". (Sorry, did they line up for him, waiting their turn?) When police arrived, Morse said, "[she] was crying hysterically" and "asking the officers, ‘Can you please make a report?'" The officers refused and told the women to calm down or risk being arrested.
"'Holla Back DC!' Calls Out Street Harassment" from NPR: This story was a follow-up to the article "D.C.'s fight against street harassment" by Theresa Vargas in The Washington Post. Tell Me More guest host Tony Cox interviewed Ms. Vargas about her article, as well as Marty Langelan, the activist profiled in the article. Ms. Vargas and Ms. Langelan discussed what street harassment is - everything from "cat calls" and sexually-explicit comments to outright groping - and how to deal with it.
My frustration? Men don't worry about a lot of the things that many women feel they have to worry about. They walk down the street or through a dark parking lot without fear of being attacked. Statistically, the men have an overall confidence in their personal safety that too few women can claim.
The disparity and inequality between men and women is as much the fault of the general culture in the U.S., where the accomplishments of men are still held in higher regard over those of women, as it is the fault of our ownselves. How women act and react, collectively, needs to change so that less and less women fall victim to individuals who never learned manners or how to keep their hands to themselves.
Activist Marty Langelan is a self-defense instructor. Most men don't take self-defense classes. They take a martial arts class, or they learned how to fight from a male figure in their life. Some women do learn martial arts rather than enrolling in a self-defense class, but what percentage can claim that someone taught them how to fight when they were young? Why didn't they ask someone to teach them?
While times are changing, the culture we grow up in is still one that teaches a lot of myths to young girls - women are weaker than men, women were meant to be protected by men, women should be nice and pretty so that men will like them. And, what's worse is that these myths are all too often being taught to us by other women - be they family, teachers, friends. These girls grow up to be the women in stories like those above.
This needs to change. We all have to push for the tools with which to fight back, both figuratively and literally. Those of us who already have the tools need to share them with the others.
What I find disconcerting about the first story above is the fact that Lisa Boiling was in the military, and that she and others in the military have reported such a high incidence of sexual assaults. While I fully admit that there is a point where you cannot defend against an attack, isn't the military an organization for fighting and defense? Why didn't they train these women to repel and incapacitate their attackers?
In the second story, the male attackers had friends with them, so I see how the women may have felt overwhelmed and outnumbered. What I find disconcerting about this article is not just that the men felt it was ok to verbally and physically attack the women, but that the other four women in the group didn't jump to their friend's defense when she was struck, and worse, that Yazzmen Morse asked, "Can you please make a report?" rather than stating that she wanted to press charges.
And, with the third story, I find it frustrating that, one, women need to be told that street harassment isn't ok and, two, they need to be protected by the city against being tossed over a construction barrier and assaulted (see the Washington Post article for more explanation). You're a woman, not a ragdoll.
However, I do have to give props to the young woman mentioned in the Washington Post article who was told by a man at a party to give him her phone number, or he would shoot her, and she still refused. She took a bullet in the ankle for it, but she stuck up for herself admirably.
I was fortunate when I was growing up, because my mother always told me I could do anything or be anything I wanted, and I never doubted that. The woman I married believes the same thing of me and of herself. If we have a daughter, we will teach her the same. We're the type of women that if we hear screaming, we grab something solid for swinging, and we run toward the screaming to help the person in trouble.
There needs to be more women willing to stand up for themselves and for those around them.
Time to man-up, ladies. Join a gym and get stronger. Enroll in a martial arts class and learn to how to throw off a 300-pound man. Tell your husband it's his turn to clean the house and stick to it. Ask your boss for a raise and get the recognition you deserve. There's no time like today to get started.
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