Me Too… and Jean (by sarah)
Ok so seriously are there going to be any women who wouldn't be eligible to write "Me Too" on their statuses?
For those who don't know there is a Status meme and has tag going around social media to highlight the amount of sexual harassment and abuse that women get (including trans etc).
And there is a lot of it - especially if you include catcalling - that's kind of it as soon as you walk down a street on your own and as for public transport at night... I've lost count of the number of willies that have come out for a waggle. And these are not "serious" things, then there is crowd groping, the old rubby rubby which again are kind of hazards of travelling, followed by school yard bar pings and skirt lifts and then we are into the deathly serious rape area which if it hasn't happened to you tends to be a thing you fear will happen to you - hence all the special kits given out to female students when you start uni and the "rape" alarms put in the toilets in the student unions though obviously you aren't officially allowed to call them that though all the staff do. And why bus drivers give me warnings about which stops to get off at at night and so on.
There are reasons that we considered self defence to be a high priority to teach to our kids and that Jean knows protocols for being followed on her way home from school or being approached etc... and the issue doesn't end at us letting her out on her own - I am a small woman - last summer saw us being surrounded by teenage boys and having verbal sexual and horrible (mistaken) racial slurs thrown at us (shortly before they covered our van in shit). Initially they hadn't seen Alaric, and from a distance he is often mistaken as a women anyway and you can see peoples body language and aggression levels change when they realise he is a man and one who is not going to back down - interestingly it didn't even occur to me to report the intimidation and verbal abuse it was only because we called in to report the poo incident that it got reported.
But even when she was much younger we were getting catcalled resulting in me having to explain certain words to her.
When laid out bare like this it makes our society look pretty sick and ill at ease with itself and quiet frankly not very advanced.
Recently I discovered that some universities in this country only started admitting women in 1987 and that was protested at! I was six years old in a country being led by a female PM and a Queen - I still need to chase the facts up but between that and single mothers still forcefully having their babies removed in the 70's it is a rather slower march to equality than I had envisioned.
Events and Outings, Society | sarah | 
Mon 16th Oct 2017 9:45 am
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By John Cowan, Mon 16th Oct 2017 @ 3:18 pm
I personally don't know any woman (with whom I have been emotionally intimate enough to have the conversation) who hasn't been raped at least once. That includes my mother and daughter and several girlfriends.
We aren't going to make progress on sexual abuse until we make progress on sexual assault.
By sarah, Wed 18th Oct 2017 @ 8:49 am
:'( It's awful - part of the problem is people feel on their own with it as well so keep quiet so all the victims remain isolated and therefore remain victims :/ The amount of horrendous stories coming out of this are staggering, and I hope it means that things like sexual assault etc... are going to be faced up too rather than continuing to be swept under the rug.
Thankyou for sharing John.