Terrapin Station

Enraged

I have often told the story of meeting my husband and telling him I didn't have a temper. That little piece of un-self-knowing is just about 16 years old now, since tomorrow is our 15th anniversary.

Of course, it was not true, and the process of finding that out was not always easy.

Fast forward to the present: when I daily become more and more enraged by things in the news about what I didn't know to call "rape culture." I'm starting to be afraid I'm going to explode with rage. My repressed temper is making up for lost time.

Why is it okay for men to comment on my appearance?

Why did I grow up knowing that "a key can be a weapon"?

Why did I accept advances from men that I didn't want to, because "otherwise he won't like me"?

Why did I brush off catcalls and rude remarks and anonymous touching in subway cars?

Well...because..."that's just what happens."

To girls, to women. To me.

That's how life is.

But, WHY the HELL is that okay? Why did I have to get to be 49 years old, and the world to be the age it is, for us to realize that it's not?

The experiences I have had are very minor compared to some.

Rape, kidnapping, molestation.

The murders in Santa Barbara last week.

Kidnapped Nigerian girls.

Girls who can't go to school when they have their periods. 

The Sudanese woman forced to give birth in chains, in prison. In prison for marrying a Christian.

The Pakistani woman who was stoned to death by her family for marrying her husband. Who then admitted he had murdered his first wife to marry the second.

Because, "That's just what happens."

Well, not any more.

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There are any number of much more eloquent blog posts on this topic. Julie Clawson's is the best I have seen.

You Don't Own Me

Still feminist after all these years

Found this button on Elizabeth Kaeton's blog, Telling Secrets.  Highly recommend the post in which it appears.  

I have a lot of snarky things to say about why Ginny Thomas might have made her rather odd phone call to Anita Hill's voicemail last weekend, but none of them would advance the conversation.

But I remember that Anita Hill testimony in 1987.  And what rings in my mind is this thought:  "She had nothing to gain from that."  Anita Hill's life was only made hard by the disgusting experience of recounting her disgusting encounters with Thomas.  

Sexual harrassment and discrimination may be much more covert these days, but, oh, they are still there.  Don't you think they are not.  It's easy for a current generation to brush aside what the previous one went through.  But we must never, ever forget.  

Here's a little postcard that I keep a stack of in my desk. I used to see lots of students for advising, and sometimes when they asked about my diplomas, I'd explain that I had a Master's in Literature, with a concentration in French Feminist critical theory.  The girls would almost always screw up their faces and say, "Well, I'M not a FEMINIST."  And so I'd give them a copy of the postcard to take with them and ponder.  No comment, just, "You might want to read this.?