We interrupt your regularly scheduled silliness for this Rant about Our Sexual Abuse Culture

I love dresses and makeup and heels and pink and dolls and sewing and knitting and cleaning and heels, oh I love heels!  But, quite frankly, I’m getting sick and tired of being a girl.

I’m tired of constantly having to be on the defensive.  I’m tired of constantly dealing with smiling through unwanted and often threatening encounters in order to protect your fragile egos.  I’m tired of having to demurely say “thank you” and blushing after you’ve followed me in your car through the parking lot to yell, “you’re stunning” or “you’re beautiful” or “you’re gorgeous” or something far worse at me out your window. 

I’m tired of your assumption about what I “must want” based on how I look, what I’m wearing or how I happened to be shaped.

And I’m sure as heck tired of our culture’s nonchalant attitude and acceptance of your doing whatever you want to us because we were somehow “asking for it.”

George R. R. Martin, author of the series that includes Games of Thrones, responded to the attacks that his fantasy novels have been receiving for their frequent depictions of rape – as one author put it, so frequent it’s “rape as wallpaper” – His response,“I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it .”  That people complain there’s too much rape and he basically says, “it’s just sex” exemplifies the problem better than any of his critics could.

But, women, we’re just there for your sexual pleasure aren’t we.  After all, a woman travelling on vacation with condoms has to be a prostitute being paid for her sexual pleasures.  Clay Nikiforuk was simply trying to pass through the US for a connecting flight when she was detained for hours because custom officials were certain she would only carry condoms if she were selling herself.  How we dress, what we carry, has to mean we’re a certain type of person, doesn't it? And give you a license to do whatever you want.  They actually asked her if she wanted to be sexually assaulted!

And of course, if something should happen, it’s on us to figure out what we could should have done differently.  We shouldn’t have been carrying x; we shouldn’t have worn y; we shouldn’t have had that much to drink; we shouldn’t have told.  But that’s what we get for carrying that, for wearing that, for drinking that, for talking to you, for being there.  That’s what we get for being a girl.

So you see, I’m sick of it.  I’m sick of it all.  But, I’m going to keep wearing my dresses and my makeup and my heels, because I like them.  But watch out.  One of these days, instead of turning and smiling and politely saying “thank you,” I’m going to deck you.  Or better yet, kick you in the shin with my heels; you’ll be asking for it.