Why does no one talk about how Hellboy was somehow the toughest, scariest guy on the planet and at the same time he had a gazillion cats and watched cartoons and drank chocolate milk???
I’m going to climb up on my soapbox so please be warned that there will be some foul language and a very strong opinion ahead.
I am tired of people being surprised of all these men who are being outed for their sexual misconduct. I am tired of pretending like this is something new, like women haven’t been treated like a consumable object for men for centuries. I am tired of men and women trying to pretend like the status quo is something to be protected, like these men are something to be protected, like it at all matters what we do with the art they made or the companies they created when no one gives a flying fuck about the women they treated like an object to satisfy their sexual desire.
I AM TIRED OF THE CONVERSATION BEING ABOUT THESE MEN!! I am tired of reading their apologies and I am tired of pretending like there aren’t countless men in lesser positions who aren’t putting women in the same position. I am tired of reading about how it isn’t “all men” when it damn well is “all women”.
All women are afraid. All women are being treated like we were put on this planet to satisfy a man’s sex drive and more and more it’s being made clear that they will use us to satisfy their lust whether we agree to it or not.
How many more stories must we hear of women being raped, being abused for saying no, or being killed for trying to exert their right to control their own body before society does something!?!?
And before another damn person tries to tell me that society is doing something, that these firings of ‘important’ men show progress, and that the media attention is helping, explain to me why this country elected a man that was recorded saying,
“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful [women]—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
-President Donald Trump
The problem is bigger than “all men”, it’s so ingrained that it’s in women as well. I see it in myself and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being a part of a society that treats me like my tits and vagina are more important than my brain. I’m tired of having to uncondition myself to cater to men, because I’ve spent 26 years on this planet being conditioned to not try and outsmart men, to not show too much skin to tempt men if I want to be taken serious, to not get too drunk or to be out too late. I AM TIRED OF LIMITING MYSELF SO THAT MEN AREN’T TEMPTED TO TAKE WHAT IS NOT THERE’S WITHOUT MY CONSENT. I am tired of people pretending like women are “letting them” sexually assault them because women have been shown time and time again that if they reject men they will be put in 'their place’. Women fear being fired, being hit, being killed and because this fear is so conditioned into us we have become part of the problem, we have in fact let men 'grab us by the pussy’.
How? By perpetuating the belief that it’s a woman’s job to be assaulted. By teaching girls that men are threatened by their brains but not their tits. By telling girls that their bodies are something to be ashamed of because some man will take what he wants from her no matter what she says.
I was taught in nursing school how to approach doctors in a way that worded things like my recommendation was there suggestion. I’ve spent years being talked down to in my profession like I didn’t attend four years of college and have six years of experience. I’m tired of being told that I’m overreacting to legitimate professional concerns because I am a woman. I am tired of being groped by patients and being told that it’s part of my job. I am tired of comforting crying women because men aren’t capable of understanding that our bodies are not their’s for the taking.
And I’m tired of being a part of a society in which every person does not realize that this is such a wide spread and valid concern. So here is me adding to the conversation. Other people are not born to satisfy your sexual desire, they have the right to live their own life, free of any unwanted sexual attention. There is no questioning this fact and if for some reason you can’t understand that, you are the problem. Not a woman breastfeeding a child, or wearing a low cut top. Not a man who got drunk and was raped. Not the woman who became a nurse and has to lean close to you to do her job. If you cannot understand that someone else’s body is their own and you need their permission to touch it, you need to change!!!
And those of us who do understand need to speak louder, because the evidence is all around that the majority of society still believes that a woman is there to satisfy its sexual desire whether she consents to it or not.
If you ever need proof that men hate women, just watch how violently and how angrily and how indignant they act when a woman says “my personal experiences combined with the experiences of my female loved ones have made me afraid of you collectively”.
“Fuck you, that’s stupid, not every man is like that.” Maybe not, but you clearly are.
When men say this, it has nothing to do with making women feel safer or changing women’s minds about men. It has everything to do with silencing women through insults and fear. It is an entirely self serving act when a man tells a woman not to fear men. They don’t care about women’s safety or peace; they care how women’s suspicion going into any interaction with them is affecting a man’s ability to do what he wants with her later.
I have never seen a man say “not all men” and come from a place of “I want women to feel safe because I want them to be happy”. It always comes from a place of “I want women to feel safe because their fear is inconvenient to me; it prevents them from going on dates with me, it makes them question my intentions when we are alone, it makes them more apt to notice when they are being treated unfairly, it makes them less likely to leave themselves vulnerable to me emotionally and physically, and it makes me uncomfortable that I may have to tell other men to behave, so I’d rather continue to harass the women who are already afraid of me by silencing them.”
