Victim shaming from a fellow woman is insufferable! Saying these women are lying because they didn’t come forward sooner is not just wrong, it’s despicable. Do you really think that way?
So… tell me then… why was it thirty years later before I talked about being molested on a Trailways bus at thirteen years old? I was supposed to be sitting in the seat behind the driver, as my mother and the Memphis bus depot manager told the driver. I got up to use the bathroom and when I came back, some woman had moved into my seat. When I told the driver, he told me to grow up and just sit somewhere. I sat in the seat that woman had vacated at the back of the bus – the only open seat. I was molested. When I complained to the driver, telling him the man was “talkin’ nasty to me and kept trying to hug me,” the driver snapped, “Sit down and quit making a fuss.” Twenty-hour or so later, I didn’t tell my Gran what happened because I’d come to the belief I’d done something wrong!
Tell me then, why, as a young professional woman, I kept quiet about all those times some deplorable excuse for a man pushed past me so that he had to rub against me, touching my breasts. That kind of thing happened over the course of three decades at work, by various skeezing pricks. And, the one time I spoke up, the man’s defense was that because I’m so generously endowed my breasts were at fault – and the MEN running the review board agreed with his excuse!
Tell me then, why my college friend, who was raped by her athlete boyfriend, didn’t report it until two years later when he finally hurt someone and they reported him from the hospital and almost half-a-dozen other girls on campus came forward with date-rape accusations against him. He was never arrested and was back on the field the next semester. Those girls were all blamed and shamed – one of them tried to kill herself. It didn’t even make the news off campus!
Tell me why women would keep something like that to themselves? Tell me why women would come forward knowing they were going to be shamed and vilified – blamed for their own victimization? Tell me why Trump can repeatedly tell the world how he assaulted women – on video all over YouTube, in magazine and news articles of interviews HE gave, in his OWN books, in audio and video to Howard Stern FOR DECADES, as well as on that damning Billy Bush tape – yet, when women actually tell you that he did what he proclaimed he’d done, YOU don’t believe them?
It’s not just what I’ve endured. The thing is, most of it is what all women endure. Who hasn’t had some man accidentally-on-purpose brush up too intimately against them? Who hasn’t had some guy on a first date take advantage of the good night kiss and decide to put her hand on his already exposed, sweaty member? Who hasn’t had some man at work put his hand in the small of her back, pressing just that little bit too close? Who hasn’t had some man at work or church or the library or where ever always find some excuse to be touching you, making you uncomfortable. Who has felt some man stalking over her shoulder at work making her squirm at the border-line indecency of it? Who hasn’t had some man skeeze up to her at a party or in a club? Who hasn’t had a man take indecent liberties, even in crowds? We’ve all experienced one or more or those things and/or know women who’ve experienced it.
This fetid misogyny has always been women’s reality. This should NEVER be our reality.
I just want to make clear to any fellow woman, engaging in victim shaming, that she and we have all had to deal with the Trumps of this world. The truth is not in you if you claim otherwise. You are a direct hindrance to the start down a path to forever ending this OPPRESSION of half the human population!
I would add, also, for those who get their hackles up at terms like “insufferable” or “deplorable,” that the terms are accurate descriptors of attitudes such attitudes. Yes, we should always be more kind whenever possible. But, the kind of bigotry and misogyny currently on display, by other women against our own gender is both insufferable and deplorable. One can only hope such women – and men – will recognize this and not add irredeemable to the descriptors.
It is not efficacious to ignore the truth of such attitudes. The people who’ve been telling us we can’t say those things are the people to whose words and deeds those descriptors fit. Indeed, it may be unkind to call them those things, but it would be a greater unkindness NOT to call out such words and deeds for what they are. Those who are the targets of such vitriol and hatred deserve that we condemn such words and deeds in the harshest of terms.
Women victim shaming MUST NOT EVER BE TOLERATED by the rest of us women! We know that statistically every single one of us will be or is a victim, and knows or will know women who are victims.
Now, we women KNOW that most of the men in this world are DECENT MEN. We know the Trumps are a small minority. We know the Billy Bushes, those wannabe-Trumps, who are titillated by that kind of predatory machismo are also in the minority – though a rather larger minority. We also know that those of our own gender, acting as defenders of the Trumps of this world have internalized the misogyny and sexism of the Trumps and the Billy Bushes.
But, we also know that the DECENT MEN have too often responded by advising us to change ourselves or our activities to avoid the danger of harassment. We’re advised not to walk or run alone on the trail. We’re warned not to walk alone in our own neighborhoods at night. We’re warned not to get in the car with a new guy we’re dating – to meet somewhere public at first, or on a double or group date. We’re advised not to find ourselves alone with a possible predator. We’re advised not to dress or speak or walk or look a certain way so we won’t draw attention to ourselves. Throughout history, we’re the ones who were covered up and enveloped. We’re the ones who were not allowed where the men go. By DECENT MEN to protect us. Why are we marginalized and held accountable for that minority of Trumps and “Bushies” in the world? Why haven’t the DECENT MEN of the world dealt with the victimizers instead of making the victims responsible for avoiding victimization?
And, when we break with any of those advisements that have been drilled into us all our lives, how are we to be expected to NOT blame ourselves? And, being taught all our lives that we must prevent our own victimization, how are to be expected to come forward without trepidation? Why must we bear any guilt?
We KNOW most are DECENT MEN. What we don’t know is why the DECENT MEN haven’t shut down the Trumps and the “Bushies” of this world.
Now, we women KNOW that most of the men in this world are DECENT MEN. We know the Trumps are a small minority. We know the Billy Bushes, those wannabe-Trumps, who are titillated by that kind of predatory machismo are also in the minority – though a rather larger minority. We also know that those of our own gender, acting as defenders of the Trumps of this world have internalized the misogyny and sexism of the Trumps and the Billy Bushes.
But, we also know that the DECENT MEN have too often responded by advising us to change ourselves or our activities to avoid the danger of harassment. We’re advised not to walk or run alone on the trail. We’re warned not to walk alone in our own neighborhoods at night. We’re warned not to get in the car with a new guy we’re dating – to meet somewhere public at first, or on a double or group date. We’re advised not to find ourselves alone with a possible predator. We’re advised not to dress or speak or walk or look a certain way so we won’t draw attention to ourselves. Throughout history, we’re the ones who were covered up and enveloped. We’re the ones who were not allowed where the men go. By DECENT MEN to protect us. Why are we marginalized and held accountable for that minority of Trumps and “Bushies” in the world? Why haven’t the DECENT MEN of the world dealt with the victimizers instead of making the victims responsible for avoiding victimization?
And, when we break with any of those advisements that have been drilled into us all our lives, how are we to be expected to NOT blame ourselves? And, being taught all our lives that we must prevent our own victimization, how are to be expected to come forward without trepidation? Why must we bear any guilt?
We KNOW most are DECENT MEN. What we don’t know is why the DECENT MEN haven’t shut down the Trumps and the “Bushies” of this world.
