Victim Blaming

I'm taking this blog to the streets...the epidemic of street harassment. Sorry for the corny intro...not going to go any further than that. First a disclaimer, I will probably refer to all cases of street harassment below in the form of "he" as the perpetrator and "she" as the victim. Not to take away the power from other cases of street harassment, of which I will acknowledge that street harassment is also a huge problem for gay males as well. I'm not even going into the harassment of heterosexual men by women...honestly, I feel like it just doesn't happen but please feel free to prove me wrong.

My argument is that our (referring to the world culture in general, more or less) concept of masculinity has been seriously fucked up. Man = strong, loud, heterosexual, assertive, aggressive, emotionless. The list can go on. Our concept of femininity is no better, although evolving slowly. Woman = quiet, weak, docile, domestic, passive, emotional, irrational. Again, the list can certainly continue. I am talking about stereotypes here people, and how these stereotypes have created hostile streets for us women.

I have been slowly brewing a deep burning intense hatred for the male gender, cultivated after years of being harassed in the streets. I walk down the streets with mace in my hand, and if I don't have it I feel completely defenseless and spend my entire walk thinking about what I have in my backpack that could possibly double as a lethal weapon. I'm not kidding, I actually walked home with a sharp cement rock in my hand last week. This is the world WE have created, this is what WE let happen. I am the first to bare my teeth and attack when someone practices "victim blaming," but if we don't recognize the role of the victim in these circumstances we can never work towards real change. There is a reason that THIS harasser chooses THIS victim. It's not fair that the victim has to defend themselves, but if we practice all of this "victim pampering" nothing will ever change. It's shitty, it's not fair, but it happens so let's do something about it.

I walk a lot, so I have a lot of time to watch the people walking in front of me and see which man turns their head, whistles, yells something offensive, whatever. From my experience, it is not always about looks. A beautiful woman will turn heads, but not necessarily receive the same type of street harassment as the next jane.  These perpetrators do not follow social rules (as in the rule of don't piss off or scare the shit out of your fellow woman), but they generally know how to avoid being caught. Like a lion chooses the sick antelope, a man chooses his "silent victim" (as termed by my good friend, Erik Kondo). Maybe that's not the best analogy, but I like the mental image it conjures up. These men look for the woman who will not say anything, which is many times even a friend or family member. What these assholes don't know (and either did we women know until recently), that their low-life strategy gives us the power. We can choose to not be the silent victim, calling him out on his fuckery. Teaching this attitude is much easier and effective than self-defense. We will not crush a guy's trachea for cat-calling us on the street (or better said, we SHOULDN'T do that), but if we knew the right verbal response we can still defend ourselves and crush his prick perverted spirit.

It's not our fault, we didn't know we have this power. We, as women, have been well conditioned to be quiet, docile, weak, passive, blah blah. And men have been taught to be the strong, loud, assertive, blah blah. So, what we can do is turn the tables and become the strong loud assertive person and tell this man to fuck off...but really FUCK OFF. This is all just theory, so please don't sue me if it doesn't work...with some men it just fuels the fire and they become more excited- in that case pull out your mace, call the police, blow hot raging fire from your mouth, do whatever you need to do to get away from a possibly dangerous situation. It is important to always be aware and evaluating your surroundings. If you are in a desolate area it might not be such a good idea to practice this strategy. In a well-populated area, get loud and embarrass the shit out of him in front of the world...its really pretty satisfying.

Anyways, I'm not trying to victim blame or to say it is our sole duty to change our misogynistic culture because that's not fair. But we don't live in a vacuum and we are not powerless helpless women. We can help become part of the change one day at a time and hopefully one day when I leave my house without my mace I will not spend my walk looking for hard sharp objects to lodge into someone's cranium.

By the way, check out this awesome story about a tough chick who spoke up: http://jezebel.com/street-harassment/

God

What does God have to do with abortion? I'm sure all of the "good" Christians/Catholics/Muslim/Jewish/whatevers will say because we are killing one of God's creations. Well gee, all this time I thought it was MY body that created this little blob of cells (along with some man-sperm)! Guess I was wrong...but then again I am not totally convinced that God exists. Evolution is not a theory, so when I ask for proof do not tell me to "look around." That's a stupid cop out. And don't tell me to prove that God doesn't exist, because you are asking me to prove a negative which is logically impossible. Can you prove that my imaginary friend doesn't exist?  As tempting as it is, I never make fun of anyone for their beliefs no matter how stupid they are  "strange" they seem to me. So since I am not inserting my sarcastic commentary into your sermons, please do not insert your God into my uterus.

I suppose it is a question as to how you define "life" but see, I have this theory. When a person is in a vegetative state, living on life support, the spouse/family is given the choice to pull the plug. Why? Because the person cannot live without support. Similarly, an embryo/fetus cannot live without the support of the mother- so why isn't it her choice to "pull the plug"? We seriously have enough  unwanted and abandoned children in this world, so lets not fool ourselves into thinking that giving the baby up for adoption is the best choice. On top of that, have you ever seen an orphanage? It's like a homeless shelter for kids- not exactly the best way to "preserve the sanctity of life" if you ask me. I've never met anyone who had an abortion who has these life long emotional scars that the crisis pregnancy centers warn us about. However I have met loads of depressed single mothers who haven't finished school and struggling to make ends meet who would have chosen abortion had it been an option and opted for a planned family later on in life.

So anyways this post was supposed to be about God and turned into abortion...sorry. I will end on the God note anyways. Does it seem creepy to anyone that people take comfort that there is a guy in the sky watching us and just waiting for us to die and judge us? Who comes up with this stuff... I do believe in shared energy of life, why? Because I can feel it. I do not feel anything when I look up at the sky, nor when I dig a hole and bring myself closer to supposed "hell."

By the way, LOL at my picture.

Women on Women

How many times have you heard a woman say "I mostly have guy friends, I can't stand other girls...SOOO much drama" (insert Elle Wood's Legally Blonde accent here). Maybe not in those exact words, but I have heard this declaration countless times.

Ok, first of all- some of the most over dramatic situations I have experienced in my life have been with MEN. I won't name names, but some pretty great examples just came into my head. Anyone who knows me well knows this story: "Damn you Devil Springs!!!!!!" hehe. But seriously, only in the case of men for some reason we take it as serious life and social problems, while with women, it is silly and over exaggerated drama.

Second of all- I hate woman-on-woman bashing. Notice, when you say this as a general truth about women there is also another woman out there saying the same thing in reference to YOU. I don't necessarily think that this is some scandal created by women-hating men and the right-wing secret agenda to destroy female solidarity, but I do think that this phenomenon is robbing us of a fundamental and beautiful connection that can only be made between two women. The first wave of feminism left much to be asked for, but it got the ball rolling and it all began with conversations between women in their homes. If we do not recognize, communicate and relate to each other in our position as women, we will never be able to face the oppression and injustices that we face.

There is a real benefit in the joining of underprivileged groups. Solidarity is the only way that anything gets accomplished (unless you live in a communist militaristic dictatorship...then it gets a bit trickier), and one of the main tactics used by oppressors is to "divide and conquer." Plus, outside of the idea of rewriting the constitution and changing the rules of society, this solidarity also helps us psychologically and emotionally. It's nice to hear from another woman that I am not the only one angry about street harassment...it is something to be angry about! It's nice to know I'm not the only one outraged about my limited reproductive choices here in Ecuador. I'm not the only one who noticed that women make much less money than men here, leading to an extreme economic dependent relationship and therefore many times an abusive and controlling partnership.

To be a woman is a beautiful thing and we are all different and unique- but we share many things (like being inherently better than men in every way! calm down, thats a joke...kind of). Any woman who has had a best female friend will testify that it is a connection that cannot be measured or compared. My relationship with my sisters and mother is hard as rock and could never be broken. My ex-roommate from college and I  had a friendship that was deep and I will never forget nor trade for anything in the world.

So ladies, please think before you start placing labels on our own kind. You would never (at least I'm going to assume that everyone who is reading this would never) make these general assumptions about another group of people. Imagine if we were to say "I really only have white friends, my black friends are so _____(insert stereotype if you really want)," you get my point? "I really only have black friends because my white friends are so _____." Get it? It's not right, and it really is just a question of changing our deep-rooted socialization. Easy peasy. Not really, but a good start is to cut this out of our dialogues with other people.

And lastly, this is not a sexy or attractive belief. Men will not like you more if you have all men friends. In fact, because of our cultural definition of masculinity as being over-protective and jealous boyfriends, most men will be threatened by your massive amounts of male friends (who in all sincerity probably would jump at the shot to hook up with you). You know what is sexy? Being comfortable with yourself in every way, not judging others or using sweeping generalizations, and being open-minded. Maybe my definition of sexy isn't exactly applicable to all people, but overall this deeply embedded misogynistic attitude seems to be a reflection of our own lack in self-confidence, and if there is one thing I do know, self-confidence is the most attractive trait a person could have.