It’s such a surprise to everyone that women are coming out saying me to. Our society has treated women as second-class Citizens for centuries. Women have been property, have been slaves, have been raped and tortured and beaten. It goes on today.
Yet now with the Weinstein everyone’s coming out with oh my God this is so shocking. But it’s not shocking it’s a common occurrence and believe 1 in 4 women are assaulted in our society. How is this all right?
How do we make it alright for little boys to grab little girls and it’s cuz he likes her. How do we allow stereotypes like girls must wear pink and boys must wear blue on TV? Why are we as women not fighting to be equals? Equal pay, equal say, equal access to all health options like birth control and abortion.
I’ve heard perfectly intelligent men and women say oh it’s just the way it is. That’s wrong. It may be the way it is; it’s not the way it should be.
We should tell the people around us that requiring sexual favors for anything is wrong. No means no. Yet that simple phrase is so debated I feel like we need something else but I don’t know what’s stronger. How do we break this cycle of male domination in the worst ways and in the most subtle of ways?
It’s not a woman’s problem it’s a societal problem. We have to teach our boys to be respectful. We have to teach our girls to stand up for themselves and say no, even if they have to use force to say no.
It’s time for society to realize that women have value. Without women none of us would be here. Until women feel safe and able to be around everyone we will continue to have this problem. Men need to shut up and listen. Because women say this happened to me does not mean that a man’s experience of being abused is any less or any easier to take. It simply means we as a gender have experienced more of this.
A man of power used his power to manipulate women to do things they didn’t want to do. This is rape. This happened so often it’s commonplace. Yet we act like this is something new with the Weinstein accusations being levied.
The DA’s and the organizations and the actors and the other industries who are coming out and saying oh we didn’t know it was this bad. To them I say too little too late. Now when there’s been bad PR and an outcry against these things happening why didn’t the police or the prosecutors or the other male-dominated organizations do anything to stop this man. To me this is more cover your ass activity for these groups then it is actual prosecution and punishment.
It’s time we get our heads out of the sand or other locations and face the problem at hand. The problem is women are not valued. They are considered mothers or whores. They are considered property although in our politically correct society they aren’t called property anymore. However what else would you call it?
We need to stop talking about change and start making things change. Stand up speak out and be proud to be a woman by standing up for other women.
