My Feminist Rant

Okay. Let’s talk about rape.

Rape is that thing, sniffling and slobbering under the table, brushing against your leg, that no one ever wants to mention by name. No one wants to be that person that calls it accidentally out from under the table, where everyone can see that hideous smushed face and it’s beady eyes, and have to stare at it awkwardly, not knowing just what to say because really, this is polite company and who the hell brought it to the party to begin with. So you sit there, sipping your tea, constantly afraid that the thing will get tripped up in your skirt or mistake you for that one annoying loud guy at the end of the table that is always slipping it treats and bite your fingers off. I get it.

But I’m also really really tired of being told to fear something that I can’t even look in the eyes without being considered impolite. But you know who can call the thing out, even laugh at it, or make it do tricks? Guys. Guys can do that, and girls can too, sometimes, but they’re supposed to be afraid of it all the same. Girls aren’t entertaining when they do that unless they act afraid of it, too.

Dropping the analogy, I’m sick and tired of my brother being allowed to do things I’m not. It’s because I’m a girl, I know it, and I’ve been trained to be afraid of that rape-thing. My brother and I are twins, and let’s face it, girls are more mature at this age, and yet I’m not allowed to go out alone. Yet when my brother wants to it’s alright. Because he’s a big strong man, now. And while he doesn’t have enough common sense to take his phone out of his jeans before washing them, I’m the one condemned to sit trembling at home while he goes off into the world.

Upon asking to go somewhere, I will be subject to a barrage of questions. So will my brother, but the protocol similarities end there. He can go off with his friends, or to the mall alone, or to say, Gettysburg for a weekend with a couple he’s friends with. I am not allowed. The reasoning: I might get “hurt”.

When my mother says I might get “hurt”, she means raped. She does, you might think I’m assuming something wrongly, but it’s true; she’s explained it to me, and will again if ever pressed. She just doesn’t like to say the word. You know that saying that fear of the name increases the fear of the thing itself? (Thanks, Dumbledore) well that’s what rape is with my mom. And I won’t kid you, she’s taught me well. I can’t walk fifteen feet from the door of my art teacher’s place to my car without clutching my bag or thinking someone’s behind me.

And it sucks. It sucks being constantly afraid. But since I’m a weak girl it’s my burden to bear.

Let’s look at the logic behind this.

Yes, girls are naturally weaker than guys in many respects. (This isn’t true in a fight between two trained fighters, but in a jump-out-of-the-shadows-rapey-rapey situation this holds true most of the time anyway)

Yes, the large majority of rapists are men, most attacking women.

Yes, I am a weak teenage girl with long hair and a slight disdain for the painted on skinny jeans fad.

Yes, 44% of rape victims are under age 18.

However:

More than 50% of all sexual assaults reported by victims occurred within one mile of their home, 1/12 in a parking garage, 4/10 in the home, and 2/10 at a friend, neighbor, or relative’s house.

In fact, 73% of rapists (from this site’s numbers, link below) were not strangers.

38% of rapes are committed by a friend or acquaintance.

The rest of that 73% is made up of intimate partners or family members.

Also, my brother (unfortunately) isn’t immune; one out of every ten rape victims in 2003 was male.

43% of rapes occur between 6PM and midnight, 24% between midnight and 6AM, and 33% in between 6AM and 6PM. So statistically I’m more likely to be raped before nightfall, since I go to school and go to bed well before midnight (I’m not a night owl).

Really, if we look at these statistics I’m most likely going to experience sexual assault at the hands of one of my friends or ex-boyfriends or a creepy uncle, in the daylight hours after school, in our around my home. My brother has one tenth of a chance of that happening to him as well. And yet these are the places and people I’m kept around to keep me safe.

Instead of taking this as a chance to become more frightened by life, why don’t we stop wasting time with that and stop teaching our daughters to be illogically terrified whenever they step out of the house. How about we teach them to be aware of their surroundings, and sign them up for karate classes when they ask instead of pushing them towards dance and getting the brother into karate which he never cared that much about anyway. How about we even let them go out more into the real world so that they develop self-reliance and don’t stress needlessly about being around strangers and new places and experiences?

I’m not saying there aren’t rapists and monsters out there to be wary of, but I’m really tired of being taught to fear everything and anything with a penis, and I don’t think it’s very fair that my life is being kept around these principles.

Motto of the story: can we just all stop raping each other so I can go out with my friends and roleplay in the woods?

Thanks,

That would be lovelly,

~Leigh

P.S. I apologize for “Rape” in the first scenario having any resemblance to certain smush-faced dogs, I’m sure your little lapdog is lovely, and that was entirely unintentional.

All statistics from http://www.rainn.org/

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." -Friedrich Nietzsche

I received a new Discover magazine today-along with two solid brass swan heads, but that’s another story- and began reading one of the articles, this one about the aging brain.

Now there’s something that has always intrigued me, something that comes up in whatever I’m reading, be it YA fiction, my History notes, or, today, an article from Discover magazine. I’ll give you a hint; in the Discover article Robert Epstein writes “Recent studies suggest that the total loss in brain volume due to atrophy—a wasting away of tissue caused by cell degeneration—between our teen years and old age is 15 percent or more…”

Why did this sentence catch my attention, spurring me to run upstairs without even finishing the article and start writing this? Well because it’s pointing out something that is in our society today downplayed- the fact that as teenagers, we are in the prime of our lives. No, some of you will say; that’s when we get into our twenties, maybe even a bit after that; that’s when we have all the energy and opportunities that our parents (aka the ‘old people’ in our lives) constantly yearn for and miss. That’s what they want you to think, I say.

The truth is, despite how our lives are structured today in the twenty-first century, our bodies are made to fit the minimum lifestyle. Years and years and years ago our primary function was to survive- not become famous, or fight for equal rights or anything “meaningful” by today’s standards; we were simply to survive, and do so in the most efficient way possible. Because of this our bodies came to fit our needs, so that we reached maturity quickly, reproduced, and then were useful enough until we died a few years later so that we could contribute to the rest of the community. We still reach physical maturity very early, even earlier, some of us, because of the chemicals we are subject to today, only our lives are structured differently now. I mentioned earlier that this comes up in YA fiction and my History notes, and it’s true; it bugs me. YA fiction has young people, teenagers, in the physical prime of their lives, actually doing things, saving the world, sometimes; but only because they are subject to adverse situations that make our normal social structure meaningless. In History class I am met with the stories and portraits of men and women who have accomplished more than I ever will, some before even reaching their eighteenth birthday. Theodore Roosevelt is constantly in the back of my mind, fueling an inferiority complex- he had what, seventy two jobs and was seven times more badass than anyone alive today?

Today most of us (unless we’re among the ranks of Gabby Douglas and Missy Franklin and other exemplary badasses) have a set path that may or may not lead us to a livable, mostly unremarkable life. We go to school, for a set number of years (a set number that is getting harder and harder from which to deviate; my aunt skipped a year in high school, but I doubt most anyone in my generation would be allowed to. I wish I could do that.) then we may or may not go to college; though if we want to be “successful” and can either afford it or con the school into giving us enough money, we probably will. Then we try to graduate, and now in our early twenties, move on to searching for a job and trying to settle down with a family or something and white picket fences and blah blah blah. Our lives aren’t based on the same things anymore; in fact, human priorities have changed so much that our lives seem to be created for us. To some extent we all follow a pattern that has been formulated by the generations that preceded us.

It seems, though, that the most successful people are those that break this pattern. It’s probably been this way in all societal patterns; dissenters either die, become pariahs, or are written into history as a great mind of their generation. I suppose that’s what makes the Steve Jobs’ and Theodore Roosevelts- people who are brave enough to disobey, strong enough to take advantage of not just what certain jobs or paths offer them, but their own resources. People who take advantage of themselves, and how they are made to work, not just how our culture wants us to.

This is slightly rant-ish, but basically this is stuff that should be recognized; our technical restraints, and then those cast on us (loosely, despite our interpretation). Our lives are structured by competing schedules.

This year I’m seventeen. I hope I’m strong enough to ignore the timetables and accomplish something that means something for real.

With sincerest regards,

Leigh