Of misogyny

A few days ago, Breonna Taylor’s executioners were allowed to walk free. One of their buddies was slapped on the wrist for getting so trigger happy that he sent bullets into the neighbor’s place.

I was so hurt, enraged, mad with anger and despair, that I let out a cry of anguish online.

My uncle responded with a ‘god’ argument whilst chiding me for using divisive language.

This was preceded by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a legal lion and one of the few protectors marginalized people enjoyed in the U.S. I had posted a comment Justice Ginsberg made and my uncle jumped on me for being divisive.

At the time, I was disgusted enough to just shut down. It has bothered me ever since. Whether that is because I have no patience with silence any longer, or am suffering from PTSD like symptoms (this is 2020, after all,) or am just being petty I don’t know.

My uncle is in his 70s. He was ordained as a minister after attending college and seminary, and has been minister, professor and professional student for the last 40 plus years. He’s also one of eight siblings, has a volume knob that doesn’t go below 7, is opinionated, and absolutely convinced that he’s right and you’re wrong unless you can catch him off guard.

Having grown up a quiet child in a loud household, I prefer not to engage, to turn the subject if pounced on, or busy myself elsewhere. I’m just—I’m done trying to speak at all when in a group of people who only raise their voices louder and look over me to talk. I’m done being made to feel invisible, and then being admonished for it.

When my uncle jumped on me, it felt like he was dismissing my lived experience. As if my teens being so thoroughly steeped in rape culture that every action at every moment of my day was done with ‘am I asking for it’ ringing in my head wasn’t abnormal. As if being molested, raped, sexualized since childhood by creepy men doesn’t qualify me to have an opinion. As if my male colleagues earning more than I do despite my longer tenure, greater experience and higher degree of professionalism isn’t an injury. As if I, in all of my personhood, am at fault for speaking or even thinking truth because I was born female. Labeling my life, blaming my voice, as divisive because it doesn’t include everyone. I can’t speak for everyone; doing so would be an egregious overreach. And I shouldn’t have to speak for men. They’ve dominated all conversations for centuries. Every. Single. Time. women speak truth in a public sphere, men quickly overwhelm the conversation with NotAllMen, whataboutism and of course rape and death threats.

I cried when a serial rapist stole the presidency and elected officials did nothing. I cried when yet another serial rapist was appointed Supreme Court justice despite being deeply unqualified. Somehow, there must still be a trace of the child whose family was all and everything—whose uncle was favorite playmate and chief protecter—left in me. That slip of a child is hurt that said uncle is as dismissive of me as Kavanaugh and his cronies were of the women they’d so carelessly destroyed.

I know he loves me and worries about my soul.  It would be nice if he were more respectful of my sanity, though.

This isn’t about my uncle, of course. It’s more about society as a whole. I’ve learned my grandmother’s coping mechanisms, my great-grandmother’s. My options may seem broader, but I still live within restrictive expectations. And I am only one...an insignificant one, at that. There are millions of us. Legions. There have been centuries, eons, before me of women. How many hundreds of thousands of years have we been quickly shushed by loving men with the best of intentions?

When will it be time for change? Because I’m exhausted sometimes just at the thought of opening my mouth.