I know this post comes in a sea amongst many in the #metoo movement and the spotlight that has been shone on sexual assault awareness, but believing we won't be heard because the volume is too loud is in large part why too many stay quiet for too long.
Recently on my Facebook, in a post requesting to all men to take a stand against rape culture, a man who was not familiar with the term (or myself for that matter) called it "silly" once he did his Google work. He then decided to express his opinion that my responses seemed "stand offish" and proceeded to end his paragraph with "too fuckin bad" in reference to how I may feel about his opinion on Rape Culture.
Immediately I reacted internally in a way I know a lot of us do when someone points out something about us that seems negative. Especially those of us who are survivors of assault. Physical, sexual, mental. Etc.
I questioned myself. I wanted to shrink. I wanted to apologize and give him the stand. I wanted to retract what I had said. I wanted to be better, do better, be more accommodating. More nice. More forgiving.
And while I am, and will forever be, open to conversation, perspectives and education I also know who the fuck I am and I'll be damned before I let another person think they can highjack my truth and turn it around on me.
I know that this man, with a profile pic of him and his small daughter, who had yet to ever hear the term Rape Culture was probably triggered by my post considering once he read the term he realized that "rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women", and well.. he happened to be a man who also has a little girl has to raise with the awareness that 1 in 6 women will be raped in their lifetimes. Tough to swallow I'm sure.
So I did what I have learned to do before reacting, I reflected.
Am I stand offish?
Because I want an open platform. I want room for dialogue. I want all humans to feel safe in my presence. I want everyone who has a story to feel free to share it. I want anyone who has questions to feel empowered in their asking.
But what I do not want is one more man thinking he is welcome to trespass against me.
So I decided,
Standoffish.
Maybe I am.
I will own this.
Because when I was only an adolescent my parents had to alert the cops on multiple occasions because there was a man exposing himself and masturbating in my neighbourhood while all us kids innocently played outside or walked to school. Standoffish.
Because in middle school the older guys thought it was appropriate to make remarks about my chest size and the clothing I wore. Insensitive, unsolicited and unwelcomed remarks about my body. Standoffish.
Because my first boyfriend raped me, physically assaulted me and mentally terrorized me. Leaving me with whiplash at one point and a lifetime of looking over my shoulder and flinching anytime someone comes up behind me, raises their voice or their arm. Because cellular memory, we don't just forget things. Standoffish.
Because at my first job during highschool our boss thought it was appropriate to take girls into the walk-in freeze at the fast food restaurant we worked at for "private meetings". Standoffish.
Because I once woke up after drinking a lot of vodka at a Super Bowl party to the guy who said he would show me the room I could sleep in having sex with me. Barely conscious, incoherent, non-consenting. Blamed myself for drinking too much. Standoffish.
Because walking through a crowded bar has, one too many times, felt like an open invitation to be grabbed, touched, blocked, overpowered by many different men. Standoffish.
Because I cannot go for a walk alone, at night, in the day, anywhere, anytime without the quiet fear lingering in the back of my mind that I am not safe to walk alone. Standoffish.
Because Ted Bundy, Paul Bernardo, The Montreal Massacre and every other murder, rape, assault on a woman simply because she is a woman. Standoffish.
Because 85% of domestic abuse victims are women. Standoffish.
These are just a few examples of times I, as a woman, felt marginalized, belittled, defeated, powerless.
While I may seem standoffish I assure I do not stand down.
I will stand in my power and I assert that I am unavailable for anything to do with oppression and objectification of women.
I stand on for me, I stand on for us all.
So to you, the man I do not even know on the internet and every other person who thinks the "Feminist term from the seventies" known as Rape Culture is Silly, and would like to point out my being standoffish to your ignorance, perhaps it is time you realize that you and your not giving much of a fuck are a part of the problem and it's time to be part of the solution. I am open to discuss rape culture and what you are doing to help end it, but if you have a problem with me being standoffish about your uneducated and insensitive opinion about it well then, Too Fuckin Bad.