I’ve waited a long time to write this post. By now, most of the noise and clamor of Believe Her/Believe Him has died down. That’s the way it usually goes. My mind ponders a subject, goes over it again and again, editing and rewriting without it ever getting on paper, desperate to have Just The Right Words that will have Just The Right Impact. Even when I’m finally ready to commit my words to the screen where everyone can see them, I still second-guess myself.
But it’s been long enough, and some things need to be said, even when I haven’t achieved perfection with them. If I don’t put my own words out there, if I only repost what others have written (no matter how eloquently), people can believe that I am only a Bandwagon Jumper, New To The Scene, and Not Really Passionate About The Subject.
The reality is, I don’t always like to share my heart online, and some subjects can be very painful for some people to read. I don’t like to share my friends’ stories without asking. I did ask, and receive permission, to share a few.
First, I need to get the obvious obligations out of the way. I know men have problems. I know men get assaulted. I know some men are raped. I know men are murdered. No one is saying that these things don’t happen to men. Of course they do. We live in a world that can be shitty at times – a lot of the time, in fact. Men have to be aware of dark alleys and lonely streets. Men have to be aware of their surroundings.
THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT THE MEN.
This is for Janessa*, whose husband raped and beat her on multiple occasions. She was told that because they were married, it wasn’t really rape. Even the police ignored her cries for help.
This is for Amelia*, whose boyfriend raped her. When she told a parent, that parent said that because it was her boyfriend, it wasn’t really rape.
This is for Nenia*, who was propositioned by someone she trusted. When she said no, he stalked her for two years.
There are more stories, so many more. I haven’t received permission to share them all. It hurts to be reminded of times when trust has been betrayed.
For millennia, women have been suppressed, oppressed, trodden down, beaten, raped, and generally subjected to restrictions that no one would dream of applying to men. Here in America, we are so blessed, so fortunate to not live through such atrocities where CHILDREN sold as wives is a common occurrence, where it it illegal for us to drive, where we can’t walk in public with our faces bared. We are fortunate. There will always be another place where other women have it so much worse.
There has never been a country where the women regularly rape the men without repercussion, where women can kill men for dishonoring the family by being raped, where men are not allowed to drive but women are, where women can vote but men can’t, where 10-year-old boys are sold as husbands to 80-year-old women, where men must cover their faces and bodies in public while women walk around uncovered, where it’s common for groups of large, strong women to chase and harass a lone man and demand sex because he’s wearing shorts and exposing his legs. Flip it to the reverse, and those things happen to women every damn day.
Just because we’re not as bad as some countries, that doesn’t make the problems here go away. We live in a culture where, if a woman is raped at a college party, the automatic response is, she shouldn’t have been there. Okay, maybe it wasn’t smart, but SHE IS NOT AT FAULT. The person at fault is the man who raped her. If she hadn’t been there, he would have found someone else to rape. The blame lies on the rapist.
No matter how aware and cautious men are, there’s a certain element lacking in basic, everyday interactions with everyday passersby: fear. Women (speaking in general here) have a constant hyper-awareness of every man they encounter. We choose our words carefully. Stroke the ego just enough so he doesn’t think we’re insulting him, but not so much that he thinks we’re flirting. Know that on a date, if we let the man pay, he will probably expect – and might demand – sex.
Being beaten and mugged is horrible when it happens to anyone. The thing is, men don’t usually have to worry about being raped into the bargain. For men, although they might be injured, their most private areas are generally left intact. For women, there is a very high chance of the assailant helping himself to her body as well as her money. Very few rapists are actually arrested. Even fewer actually are convicted.
Of course there are some instances of false reporting, but those instances are astronomically fewer than the number of rapists who walk free. Women are shouted down, harassed, and questioned brutally if they even mention the assault. No one wants to believe that “that nice guy” committed such an atrocity. It’s easier to just say the woman is making it up or was asking for it.
No woman asks for rape. No matter how inebriated, no matter how she’s dressed, no matter how friendly she was, that does not absolve the man of his behavior. The blame for assault needs to be put where it belongs – on the assailant. Every person is responsible for their own actions.
*These are real people and real stories. Their names have been changed to protect privacy. There are so many more stories I could share, but I won’t do that without permission from the owners of those stories.
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