parity | trent alexander-arnold²

twenty-one.

[ warning: (minor) mentions of sexual assault/violence & rape ]

. . .

realisation & acknowledgement at opposite ends

05/02/20

As the Premier League had been placed a hold for a while for the annual season break, many players were taking advantage of the break to relax at home or jet off to foreign land; the scouse leaning towards the first option. Trent had planned to spend the break with Wynter in California though since she was currently there and she wasn't necessarily permitted to utilise her break, he felt it would've been insensitive of him to live in paradise while the french player had to continue enduring training.

Closing his phone after a long facetime with Wynter, Trent sighed as his foot touched down on the final step of the stairs before trailing into the living room, plotting down on the couch. Seeing as neither of his brothers hadn't declared control of the TV, he grabbed the remote and headed towards the sports and documentary section.

"You've really been into this series of Wynter's, huh?" Tyler asked once he noticed Wynter's series and its episode choices appear on the screen, many of them already watched by the scouse himself.

"I mean, they're available to watch so why not?" Trent shrugged, his eyes focused on the TV as he continued to search for his preferred episode. "Plus, I needed to catch up on the series anyway but now I'm going to watch the newest episode."

"Ooh, let me watch!" Trent jumped a bit when Marcel leapt into his seat by jumping over the couch. Giving the younger brother a dazed look as he shook his head, Trent played the episode.

"Whenever I'm on the topic of gender equality I always make sure to start off with the basics just to make sure everyone's on the same page. The idea of feminism is the advocacy of the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. So when I'm at debates or I'm talking about it to others, it always comes to me as a surprise when others ask me if I think men face sexism in today's society," Wynter took a swift look at the teens before she continued. "Of course, they do. That's not something that should be debated over because men do sexism within certain areas of society but it's simply not as mainstream as the one women face.

"Maybe it's not as clear as the unfairness that women have to go through or it's not necessarily caused by women but it's definitely there which is why it tends to go ignored by many people because they learn to believe that sexism is only directed at women and women are usually the ones who are more vocal about the problems and issues that they face on a regular basis – this isn't the same case for men from what I've seen in my life at least."

"Trent," Tyler glanced at his brother with a pointed look as he quickly got a notion as to where Wynter's words would head.

Trent simply bit the inside of his cheek as he focused his attention on his girlfriend and her following words.

"I think what I see most of the time and what I feel as though is ignored a lot is the fact that men tend to not speak up about their issues because they know others around them won't take them seriously or their issue or problem is a woman's problem on a mainstream platform. Uh, just to give a few examples—men are less likely to receive custudy of their children when divorcing their wifes, men are the ones prompted by others to go to war. And while there's many topics to touch on, let's focus on the topic of rape and sexual assault against men.

"You have so much more female victims compared to male victims and with the disparities in terms of each group's number of victims, people are less likely to believe men compared to women. Not because of the number difference in the groups but because you'll hear some say men can't be raped or how can you allow yourself to get raped if the victim's attacker was a woman, you know? Also in one way implying the idea that men are solely strong and women are solely weak so things such as rape and sexual assault should only occur in a woman's direction.