A woman's reality
A few weeks ago, in that indigo hour before a rooster's crow and long before the roses and golds of sunrise, I woke myself up.
Afternoon. Sun is high. School not out yet but would be soon. I was bending into the back passenger seat of my parked car, keys in pocket, looking for something...a position I rarely take in real life because of its exposure. A car pulled up driven by a familiar man--no name, just a face I've seen more than once in the neighborhood.
"Hey, cutie, any chance you can give me directions?"
The moniker sent that familiar chill of tension, fear, through me. How am I "cutie" to someone I've never been introduced to, never properly met. I'm mother to a middle schooler, not a sweet faced young woman. NevershowfearNevershowfear. Quickly straightening to a more defensible but still very exposed position, "No, I'm in a rush," I replied, hand on the door to close it. His face changed. That was the instant I knew the trouble I was in. He'd been waiting for any answer; what I said didn't matter. I didn't matter. He'd already stepped on the gas. He was going to use his car to knock me down and then rape me. Here on the street. In broad daylight. Between his car and the back door of mine which would be broken in a split second. I cried out 'NO!' and woke myself up with the noise I'd made.
Disturbing as the dream was, (and it was indeed disturbing--it's been a long time since agency over my own body was taken from me,) I'm working through something else in this post.
Any dream snippet I remember, I can usually trace back. As in: What is the underlying fear or anxiety I'm working through? Or when was the last time I talked to that beloved friend or family member? Or why am I bringing my work home with me?
This particular nightmare was easy enough to trace. The president of my country is another in a long line of entitled old white men, one who openly brags about sexually assaulting women and has a long history of abusing women, including power raping his first wife. The democratic process that is supposed to keep this power-mad sunsetting old fart in charge of the Executive branch of my government in check is completely usurped by more entitled old white men with similar histories of casual abuse who are openly corrupt. And these, the members of the Legislative branch of this country, are very keen to push through to the Supreme Court (what else?) an entitled old white man who happens to enjoy sexually assualting women, all so they can cement their hold over the country. And over my body, incidentally.
A young woman was gang raped in India on public transport with a whole overcrowded bus full of witnesses and not a single man faced justice. That's just the lone story that made it this far. If such an action is permissible with no justice whatsoever, what's daily life like for the millions of women whose stories don't make it across the pond?
School children are kidnapped all over terrorist-held territories; the boys ransomed or turned into fighters, the girls turned into sex slaves. Sex slaves. Like that's a thing. An individual, a young person trying to find her identity in a world that has already told her she's a second class citizen, is forcefully removed from familiar surroundings, raped repeatedly, and then shoved from place to place to be raped by yet more strange men. With mothers of those young men alternately spitting on her or cooking for her, but not intervening for her. It's nice that we have a tidy little term to keep us from thinking too deeply into the reality of this life. And #BringBackOurGirls didn't get much traction beyond some old entitled white men throwing the story around for political points, now did it? Again, these are just the stories that make the long journey into our awareness. There are countless more.
The #MeToo movement is in full swing and 2018 has been labeled the Year of the Woman. Bill Cosby (?!?!) turns out to be a power rapist. (Of ALL the role models in this world, HE had to be a massive arse?? REALLY?!)
In the early 90s, when I was in high school, there was the Take Back the Night campaign to bring national attention to date rape being a real thing, to power rape and opportunity rape being real things. To prove that campus rape really happened. There was also a Year of the Woman. Bill Clinton was (guess what?) an entitled old white man abusing his power to use women and it was thought that sweeping societal changes were within our grasp.
Then firefighters began being called firemen again.
And the 80s. And the 70s.
This awareness--this insistence that we be heard--that we be allowed to breathe freely, to just be, without always having to assess every potential threat, it feels stronger this time. Did it feel that way for women my age in the 1970s? Were women in the 80s able, even for a brief time, to tell a creep to buzz off without having to worry about being beaten or power raped (or both) and then denied their hellish reality? I know that in the 90s, if I had to walk at dawn, sunset or later, I walked in the middle of the road--where street lamps cast the most light--unless I had a group to stay with. Trips to the bathroom were never taken alone, drinks were only swallowed if I watched their life span from bartender's hand to mine, and even something as innocuous as taking my little sister trick-or-treating around the neighborhood ended with me accosting and importuning a fit, bodybuilder type accompanying wife and small child to escort us home because yet another entitled old white man was pacing us, keeping a hawk's eye on his prey. Even with my constant awareness as a young woman, I couldn't avoid rape.
So is this...national awakening for lack of a better way to describe it...is it really different? I think it is. Heaven knows I want it to be. But that very desire, the ferocity, the intensity of it, force me to question whether this time really will be different, or whether I just want it to be.
Afternoon. Sun is high. School not out yet but would be soon. I was bending into the back passenger seat of my parked car, keys in pocket, looking for something...a position I rarely take in real life because of its exposure. A car pulled up driven by a familiar man--no name, just a face I've seen more than once in the neighborhood.
"Hey, cutie, any chance you can give me directions?"
The moniker sent that familiar chill of tension, fear, through me. How am I "cutie" to someone I've never been introduced to, never properly met. I'm mother to a middle schooler, not a sweet faced young woman. NevershowfearNevershowfear. Quickly straightening to a more defensible but still very exposed position, "No, I'm in a rush," I replied, hand on the door to close it. His face changed. That was the instant I knew the trouble I was in. He'd been waiting for any answer; what I said didn't matter. I didn't matter. He'd already stepped on the gas. He was going to use his car to knock me down and then rape me. Here on the street. In broad daylight. Between his car and the back door of mine which would be broken in a split second. I cried out 'NO!' and woke myself up with the noise I'd made.
Disturbing as the dream was, (and it was indeed disturbing--it's been a long time since agency over my own body was taken from me,) I'm working through something else in this post.
Any dream snippet I remember, I can usually trace back. As in: What is the underlying fear or anxiety I'm working through? Or when was the last time I talked to that beloved friend or family member? Or why am I bringing my work home with me?
This particular nightmare was easy enough to trace. The president of my country is another in a long line of entitled old white men, one who openly brags about sexually assaulting women and has a long history of abusing women, including power raping his first wife. The democratic process that is supposed to keep this power-mad sunsetting old fart in charge of the Executive branch of my government in check is completely usurped by more entitled old white men with similar histories of casual abuse who are openly corrupt. And these, the members of the Legislative branch of this country, are very keen to push through to the Supreme Court (what else?) an entitled old white man who happens to enjoy sexually assualting women, all so they can cement their hold over the country. And over my body, incidentally.
A young woman was gang raped in India on public transport with a whole overcrowded bus full of witnesses and not a single man faced justice. That's just the lone story that made it this far. If such an action is permissible with no justice whatsoever, what's daily life like for the millions of women whose stories don't make it across the pond?
School children are kidnapped all over terrorist-held territories; the boys ransomed or turned into fighters, the girls turned into sex slaves. Sex slaves. Like that's a thing. An individual, a young person trying to find her identity in a world that has already told her she's a second class citizen, is forcefully removed from familiar surroundings, raped repeatedly, and then shoved from place to place to be raped by yet more strange men. With mothers of those young men alternately spitting on her or cooking for her, but not intervening for her. It's nice that we have a tidy little term to keep us from thinking too deeply into the reality of this life. And #BringBackOurGirls didn't get much traction beyond some old entitled white men throwing the story around for political points, now did it? Again, these are just the stories that make the long journey into our awareness. There are countless more.
The #MeToo movement is in full swing and 2018 has been labeled the Year of the Woman. Bill Cosby (?!?!) turns out to be a power rapist. (Of ALL the role models in this world, HE had to be a massive arse?? REALLY?!)
In the early 90s, when I was in high school, there was the Take Back the Night campaign to bring national attention to date rape being a real thing, to power rape and opportunity rape being real things. To prove that campus rape really happened. There was also a Year of the Woman. Bill Clinton was (guess what?) an entitled old white man abusing his power to use women and it was thought that sweeping societal changes were within our grasp.
Then firefighters began being called firemen again.
And the 80s. And the 70s.
This awareness--this insistence that we be heard--that we be allowed to breathe freely, to just be, without always having to assess every potential threat, it feels stronger this time. Did it feel that way for women my age in the 1970s? Were women in the 80s able, even for a brief time, to tell a creep to buzz off without having to worry about being beaten or power raped (or both) and then denied their hellish reality? I know that in the 90s, if I had to walk at dawn, sunset or later, I walked in the middle of the road--where street lamps cast the most light--unless I had a group to stay with. Trips to the bathroom were never taken alone, drinks were only swallowed if I watched their life span from bartender's hand to mine, and even something as innocuous as taking my little sister trick-or-treating around the neighborhood ended with me accosting and importuning a fit, bodybuilder type accompanying wife and small child to escort us home because yet another entitled old white man was pacing us, keeping a hawk's eye on his prey. Even with my constant awareness as a young woman, I couldn't avoid rape.
So is this...national awakening for lack of a better way to describe it...is it really different? I think it is. Heaven knows I want it to be. But that very desire, the ferocity, the intensity of it, force me to question whether this time really will be different, or whether I just want it to be.
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