“To the first man, who I met by the Eiffel Tower my second week in Paris, when I didn’t know better. Who took me out four times, who waved little red flags that I tried to ignore. Like asking me outright if I was a virgin on the first date, like calling me five different pet names when I’d asked him not to throughout the second, like saying he’d heard that feminists were not real women during the third, like disappearing for a week and a half after the fourth. Who, as it turns out, was not the bullet, but the careening fourteen-wheeler that I narrowly managed to dodge. Who admitted that he hit the young woman that his mother was trying to force him to marry. Who didn’t want to marry her because he believes in romantic love. Who doesn’t see the contradiction in those two sentences. To the guy in my medieval literature class, who lent me one of Camus’ plays and showed me around the library. Who wants to use his French education not to escape to the West, but to go back to his developing nation to teach at its eight-year-old university. Who I admired until he asked me what my American boyfriend had thought about me coming to Paris, until he demanded to know why I didn’t have one (a boyfriend, that is), until he asked if it was required that I marry an American. Who reached out and touched my earrings, without asking, the next time he saw me. Who won’t take a hint. To the PhD student who tried to take me up to his apartment after a five minute conversation, when I had just wanted to get lunch, who said there’s a first time for everything. Who told me that we were university students, living in a 21st century democracy, and that relations between men and women were different now, so what was I so scared of? Who recoiled in shock when I told him that I had friends who’d been raped, and by other university students, at that. Who does not have to think about rape on a daily basis. Who insisted on paying for my lunch, because “it was a matter of honor.” Who then physically prevented me from handing my money to the cashier, when I was trying to make it clear that this was not a date. Who didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t want a boyfriend, five times. Whose number I blocked the moment I stepped on the metro. Who has called me three times since. Who told me he wants to go into Senegalese politics. Who, I can only hope, will listen to the women of his country better than he listened to me. To the delivery guy on the red motorcycle idling outside of the apartments on Avenue de Porte de Vanves, the ones I walk past every day, who said bonsoir and who, because I said it in return to be polite, followed me to the metro as I walked, head twisted down, pretending that I didn’t understand the language I’ve studied for eight years. To the two men Thursday night in le Marais, swaggering drunk toward me, ignoring the male friend standing by my side, who leered at my chest and slurred, “Bonsoir, comme tu es mignonne,” as I shoved past them, trying to sound angry, not afraid. Who left me feeling fidgety and panicked, so when I took the night bus in the wrong direction and found myself alone with two other strange men at a bus stop at 2:30 A.M., I let the cab driver fleece me out of 25 euro just to take a taxi home. To the group of teenage boys loitering on the corner by my apartment, who decided to sound a siren at my approach because I was wearing a knee-length dress and a bulky sweater. Who made me regret forgoing tights because I had wanted to feel the spring air on my calves for once. Who will never have to wear an itchy pair of pantyhose in their entire lives. To whom I said nothing, because I still have to walk past that corner twice a day for the next three-and-a-half months, because there were five of them and one of me. To the three men standing on the corner of the periphery five minutes later when I was crossing the street. To the one who motioned for his friends to turn and look at me, quick, and then left his wolf-whistle ringing in my ears, shame like sunburn covering my face. Who didn’t care that it was broad daylight. Who made me wish that I could swear a blue streak back in French, without my accent betraying that I am American, which is another word for “easy” here. To the two men at sunset on the bridge by Saint Michel, in the middle of tourist central, who made skeeting noises at me, like a pair of sputtering mosquitoes, to get my attention. Who laughed when I flipped them off, and who kept hissing at me anyway. Who forced me to keep checking over my shoulder, all the way to the metro, to make sure that I wasn’t being followed. But also to the French friend who blamed my problems with French men on my university in the northern suburbs, a Parisian synonym for emeutes, gang violence, and immigration. Who insisted that if he brought me to his upper-crust private (white) university—where the French elite reproduces itself into perpetuity—I would meet nicer French guys. Who forced me to defend the men who’d harassed me against his barely-veiled, racist critique. And also to the American friend at home who nearly rolled his eyes as he half-listened to my stories, who said, “Oh god, it’s hard being so attractive, isn’t it?” as if I was being vain. Who laughs and does not understand why I always duck out of the frame of photographs, who knows nothing of what my body means to me. And that’s just two months in Paris. To all the Italian men who made me wish I had dyed my hair black before studying in Florence, who kept me from going out dancing because I got sick of feeling them creeping up behind me, sneaking their hands around my waist (and lower) when I’d already said NO three times. To the six-foot-something Georgetown student who prided himself on protecting the girls from being groped on the dance floor. Who chose to write about the rape of the Sabine woman for that week’s assignment. Who described the way her breast slipped free of her tunic when she fell, as if he was writing a porno, not a rape scene, who had the woman fall in love with her Roman rapist the next morning, after he spun her a tale of the coming glory of his country. Who said “in a fit of passion, she thrust herself upon his member” and was not joking. Who ended the story with the titular character saying to her children that she had been raped, but only at first. To the seventh-grade boy who told my younger sister that he could rape her, if he wanted to. To the gang of twenty-five year-olds in the Jeep who hollered at her as they drove past, leering at her thirteen-year-old body dressed in sweat pants and a tank top. Who made my sister, fearless on the soccer field and in the classroom and in the karate studio, run home crying. Who were the reason she became afraid to walk the dog by herself in our “safe, suburban” neighborhood. To my father, who said, “What white male privilege?” who was not being ironic.”

—

Julia Maddera (via colporteur)

These stories are so important, so terrible, so true. I want to show these to everyone who’s ever rolled their eyes and told me that street harassment is “not a big deal, oh my god, it’s flattering!” These are the sorts of testimonials that I need to be able to point at and say, See? This. This is our lives, each time someone doesn’t understand our lived experience of misogyny, that day-to-day fear of simply trying to be a person who exists in the world. These are the things so many men do, and those daily transgressions build and they build, and you never know when they might lead to something even worse, but the accumulation of all these daily violations is bad enough. We should not have to live this way when all we are doing is living while being women. 

(via dalek-in-heels)

This is the reason why I proclaim myself a fickle misanthropist and, at the moment, very asexual.

I remember only wearing a skirt twice during secondary school because when I did, that was the only time people suddenly started paying a lot of attention to me when I walked past. and it was very uncomfortable. Because girls who did so daily, always had boys walking a precise few steps below them on the stairs. And when summer came by, the boys would take off their ties and just snap it at their bare legs whenever. I remember always wearing a one of my brother’s oversized shirts to avoid such attention - and still have boys plucking at my bra straps from the back like there was nothing wrong with that. To repeatedly have boys come up to you and ask about fingering and dates, just because all the other guys were doing it and they thought they were being cool. I remember them thinking nought of the girls’ feelings and their walking away to a group of other jeering guys. And the other girls just casually dismissing it, treating it like any other everyday occurrence. 

Because it was.

(Source: bmoburns)

→ May 8 2012 / PERMALINK

  1. capitanofvalor reblogged this from akendrcks
  2. booksmarts101 reblogged this from the-russian-spy
  3. youredeyedprick reblogged this from periodicbrilliance
  4. periodicbrilliance reblogged this from danceonmytiptoes
  5. hisgranger reblogged this from gamzee
  6. sandvichette reblogged this from totallynotagentphilcoulson
  7. basscleft reblogged this from totallynotagentphilcoulson
  8. grimmalkiin reblogged this from maltair
  9. bbcsls reblogged this from sadandfab
  10. girlnamedsheldon reblogged this from totallynotagentphilcoulson
  11. cheeseycracker reblogged this from totallynotagentphilcoulson
  12. sadandfab reblogged this from flailing-otters
  13. flailing-otters reblogged this from totallynotagentphilcoulson
  14. billy-joe-hank reblogged this from fromthemindofatwentyorotherlycan
  15. pockethoechlin reblogged this from totallynotagentphilcoulson
  16. siriuslyobvious reblogged this from totallynotagentphilcoulson
  17. totallynotagentphilcoulson reblogged this from fromthemindofatwentyorotherlycan
  18. fromthemindofatwentyorotherlycan reblogged this from mugen-genjitsu
  19. purveyorsofmischief reblogged this from saveyoufromanything
  20. rainbowcasoup reblogged this from saveyoufromanything
  21. fleetingbeatingofhearts reblogged this from thunderburning
  22. oldbriar reblogged this from thunderburning
  23. thunderburning reblogged this from sistercora
  24. mugen-genjitsu reblogged this from chaoticarrowhead
  25. psychotic-graham-cracker reblogged this from chaoticarrowhead
  26. chaoticarrowhead reblogged this from jakeebubbles
  27. daniellesawyer reblogged this from poppies