So, here we are.
4 days in, and we've already reached the "your body, my choice" stage. Women are, rightly...unsettled. Angered. Afraid.
And so I say, with all the fervor I can muster:Don't despair. Prepare.
We have a bad habit of fearing the worst, but then being surprised when it happens. If this whole ordeal has shown us nothing else, it's shown us:YES, they WILL do that.YES, they do mean it.NO, they weren't 'kidding.'
While it is fair to demand that men BE better, the shitty ones have proven, they WON'T. Many years ago, when Sean and I were still dating, we were on a theater tour, and one of our stops was in Wyoming. After the show, we went to dinner, and then he dropped me at my host family's house. It was quite late, and I expected everyone to be asleep.
Instead, I found two drunken cowboys on the sun porch, who had no idea who I was and was overjoyed that a woman just walked in off the prairie. It turns out they were the brothers of the host family's mom.
Things got scary super quickly, and I laughed nervously and said, "Sorry, guys, I gotta go get some sleep- My boyfriend is picking me up in the morning."
The smaller of the two stopped laughing immediately, walked up to my face, and said, "Your boyfriend isn't here right now."
Fortunately, the other brother smelled danger and his "hey now," gave me just enough time to race out of the room and barricade myself in my bedroom. The next morning, the mom couldn't look me in the eye, but whispered to me in the kitchen, "I think you met my brothers last night....I'm sorry."
I learned from that. 1. Those type of men will do whatever they can get away with. 2. Women need to start calling these men OUT and not covering their shit up. 3. My boyfriend ISN'T here right now.
Sean is almost 200 pounds of pure muscle and Irish rage, and when he's with me, I wish a motherfucker would. But he can't always be by my side, and that is what we need to remember.We can't count on there being a good man in the room to check the assholes. We have to count on OURSELVES.
And so we prepare. Sean boxes, and now there is a hot pink set of gloves in the garage, because he's teaching me how to protect myself better.
Take self defense classes. Keep your head on a swivel.Hope for the best, be ready for the worst.Stop worrying about "offending" the "nice" guy, because if he really is a nice guy, he will understand.
We will not let the weakest men among us suppress our entire gender.
Look them in the eye.Be loud.Hit hard.
