being a mom
After The Rape Stories From New Delhi & Steubenville & Everywhere, Women Are Tired – But Still #ShoutingBack
While I was sleeping, all of my sisters and aunts and mothers and cousins and daughters and friends took to Twitter with a hashtag started by the Everyday Sexism Project entitled #ShoutingBack. It’s a jarring thing to wake up to, reading all of these tweets about how women and girls are subjected to harassment on a seemingly never-ending basis, but in light of recent events it seems that everyone is speaking out against things like this. And even though it is sort of jarring, it isn’t very shocking, because this is the life of women, from birth to death. This is our reality. I don’t care how old you are, or how you look, or what you are wearing, or where you are, chances are pretty good that you will encounter this.
I love this conversation about sexual harassment, about how we can raise our girls not to be victims and how we can raise our boys not to be rapists, about how we can – how the world can – start viewing sexual assault and harassment for how damaging it really is.
But I hate this conversation. I’m tired. And even though I know that rapes happen every minute of every day the world over, and that women have been writing about this and speaking out about this and protesting about this since the dawn of time, after awhile it seems like no matter how loud and heartfelt and angry you are about the situation, you are still sort of screaming into the ether.
But, you know, fuck me and being tired and whatever cry-baby thoughts flash through my mind as I think and write about these things, because at the end of the day, this has been another 24 hours that I wasn’t raped. It’s been another week that I wasn’t raped. Which is more than I can say for thousands of women and girls the world over.
