It’s not just about the fact a person can run to be a leader of our nation and still say disgusting things about women.
It’s that there are other men who have let him. Who allowed him to spend his whole life speaking about us like we are destined to be eaten. Who thought of this attitude as honest rather than deplorable.
I’m watching you. I’m sick of boys removing themselves from the conversation because they “would never”. But you would let your friend catcall. But in the locker room or in your living room or in your frat house, you laugh when he makes the rape joke, when he talks about her like she’s inconsequential, when he removes her consent and speaks about her as if she’s a haunted house; good for a night and a story but too trapped with ghosts.
You better look down, because you’re on fire, too. You’re not free of sin because your sin was listening, an ear that excuses behavior over and over and over again until those who laugh about it begin to preform it on a personal level. Until they think they will be tolerated for criminal behavior because you tolerated them too.
The worst part is they’re right.
I want to believe in mankind. Believe he doesn’t become an rapist overnight, that only decades of business meetings or beauty contests teach him that it’s okay to be demeaning. Teach him our bodies only belong in the orbit of a boy, only mattering when we have a son.
I know how many will fold into themselves about this, hide like always in the idea you cannot change what is, that we exaggerate, that it’s not that much of a problem. That it’s not on you. Maybe it’s someone else’s problem, you won’t speak up because something in your circumstance always prevents it. That women talk about men that way sometimes, don’t they? You’ll follow rabbit holes until you come back up to sunshine without realizing you smell of nothing but gravedirt.
I’m watching you. I want to let you know you don’t get to sleep at night anymore, because none of us do. The girls you laughed about, talked about our parts as if you couldn’t tell you were slicing us into pieces. The girls who still have bruises. The women who you only see the shadow of when they stand next to their fathers or boyfriends, the two-dimensional figments of your imagination.
We are real and last night it was hard for us to breathe. All that air got snatched up by his talking. Last night we didn’t sleep. I’m not just cursing him anymore. I’m telling you the curse goes deeper. It’s every rape case you ignored, every time you waived off how offended she got by his words, every time she got uncomfortable and you did your best not to notice. I’m cursing the boy who didn’t get her back safely even though he knew about his buddy. The boy who stood in the same room as someone who spoke about her roughly and just kept drinking. I mean you.
Not all men, maybe. But all men have seen it happen.
Now the question is: when are you going to do something?
It’s that there are other men who have let him. Who allowed him to spend his whole life speaking about us like we are destined to be eaten. Who thought of this attitude as honest rather than deplorable.
I’m watching you. I’m sick of boys removing themselves from the conversation because they “would never”. But you would let your friend catcall. But in the locker room or in your living room or in your frat house, you laugh when he makes the rape joke, when he talks about her like she’s inconsequential, when he removes her consent and speaks about her as if she’s a haunted house; good for a night and a story but too trapped with ghosts.
You better look down, because you’re on fire, too. You’re not free of sin because your sin was listening, an ear that excuses behavior over and over and over again until those who laugh about it begin to preform it on a personal level. Until they think they will be tolerated for criminal behavior because you tolerated them too.
The worst part is they’re right.
I want to believe in mankind. Believe he doesn’t become an rapist overnight, that only decades of business meetings or beauty contests teach him that it’s okay to be demeaning. Teach him our bodies only belong in the orbit of a boy, only mattering when we have a son.
I know how many will fold into themselves about this, hide like always in the idea you cannot change what is, that we exaggerate, that it’s not that much of a problem. That it’s not on you. Maybe it’s someone else’s problem, you won’t speak up because something in your circumstance always prevents it. That women talk about men that way sometimes, don’t they? You’ll follow rabbit holes until you come back up to sunshine without realizing you smell of nothing but gravedirt.
I’m watching you. I want to let you know you don’t get to sleep at night anymore, because none of us do. The girls you laughed about, talked about our parts as if you couldn’t tell you were slicing us into pieces. The girls who still have bruises. The women who you only see the shadow of when they stand next to their fathers or boyfriends, the two-dimensional figments of your imagination.
We are real and last night it was hard for us to breathe. All that air got snatched up by his talking. Last night we didn’t sleep. I’m not just cursing him anymore. I’m telling you the curse goes deeper. It’s every rape case you ignored, every time you waived off how offended she got by his words, every time she got uncomfortable and you did your best not to notice. I’m cursing the boy who didn’t get her back safely even though he knew about his buddy. The boy who stood in the same room as someone who spoke about her roughly and just kept drinking. I mean you.
Not all men, maybe. But all men have seen it happen.
Now the question is: when are you going to do something?
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