New Project: Chapter 19
Feelings are the stuff of dreams, memories, courage, and compromise. Often, they lead us blind. We are so prepared to trust the emotions our relationships inspire that we create narratives that justify. He’s mean to you because he likes you. He loves me and would never hurt me so it must be my fault. Boys will be boys. Girls are just too emotional to be trusted most of the time.
It takes something shocking to jolt us out of the narrative we create, something powerful to demand critical examination of the relationships we make. That happened to me recently and I ended two friendships inside of a week. I’d known Tom for thirty-two years and John for five. Both defended presidential candidate, Donald Trump, for bragging about sexual assault. Severing the relationships hurt a lot, and yet there was no choice. I simply couldn’t continue friendships with men who share Trump’s thoughts. To them, his words were no big deal, just locker room talk. To me, even “locker room talk” is demeaning and hurtful. Take out the unwanted kissing and groping, the words of sexual assault, and you are left with men who see women as toys with attractive body parts.
Tom and I met in college. He was muscular, proud, and blond. We shared a passion for literature and tree climbing and forged a strong, platonic bond. Early in our friendship he told me I’d be pretty if I lost some weight. I was sixteen, an athlete, and in fairly good shape. Later, as I met boys and played with them, he told me to be careful lest I earn the reputation of slut. Tom was like a brother to me. I winced when he made his comments, but didn’t blow them off because he was doing his job. The recipe dictates that men protect the women they care about.
Over decades, Tom and I talked, encouraged, supported, and fought. One night, shortly after I’d left my first husband, he called me while drunk, asked if the panties I wore were lace, and if I’d ever given him a sexual thought. Though shocked at his lewd behavior, I tittered nervously and let it slide because of the alcohol and, well, boy talk. He called a few days later to apologize and we moved on, the incident a glitch unworthy of the friendship we’d held for so long.
I never thought about any of these instances until Tom defended Donald Trump. The hateful rhetoric of that man’s campaign gave so many people permission to shove aside the proverbial curtain and step out of their caves. In a staggering, shining moment, I realized Tom’s comments over the years were part of a nefarious conviction he shares with much of the world; women are objects so men can be men rather than human. They need us weak so they can be strong,
The fight for equality has raged on this continent since the European invasion bloodied its shores. Freedom from government without representation incited the American Revolution. The fight over slavery separated brothers in the Civil War. Now it seems the fight has taken a broader course. Battle lines are drawn. The nation is in upheaval. There is talk of bloodshed over cultural norms. Women, minorities, and LGBT people are demanding more than has ever been allowed and those who would maintain the status quo are prepping for war.
Hang on to what you know. Don’t rock the boat. Women are women and men are men and that’s the way it’s always been. One female Trump supporter said in defense of his words, “It was a man saying it to another man in a man’s world.” Somehow, to her, that meant his words weren’t wrong. The recipe for toxic love. Coulter’s song. No good way to be a girl. Go along to get along. I cried when I ended my friendship with Tom, though I did it on Facebook and he never saw.
John and I became friends on Twitter. We’re both writers and over the years his critique of my books has been invaluable. We disagreed on many issues, but our dialog had always been respectful. Then Trump came along. John said Trump was no worse than the rappers invited to the White House by President Obama.
I said, “This man’s running for President and bragging about sexual assault. The rappers are writing songs.”
John said, “No. They’re trying to get people to shoot cops and Trump’s words were locker room talk.”
The issues are complex, certainly. One can argue there is no right or wrong, there is only how we feel and what we do in response, but that conviction only works when rooted in the narrative we’ve been taught.
A draft reader of this book read Chapter 14 and sent me a note. Shaken by my words, she recounted a story of her own about a woman who had taken art classes from her a long time ago. The student was sweet, quiet, and dedicated to learning the craft. She came in the afternoons while her children were in school and then suddenly stopped. The teacher called and got no response. Finally, after much persistence, the student explained that her husband, who had forbidden her to leave the house, had found out and it was dangerous for her to continue the lessons. After that conversation, she never heard from the student again.
The teacher told me, “Women’s lives are often much more complicated than what you describe. Often excuses hide secrets, secrets others (women included) don’t want to know. This happened in 1985. Still happening to too many women today: women keeping secrets, hiding their secrets behind ‘excuses’ because they are unable to tell their truths, even to other women.”
When I first read this, I felt terrible. Nodding my head, I silently agreed with the teacher’s words. Safety is paramount for women. The student did what she felt necessary to preserve it for herself and her kids. And then it hit me. This is the narrative we’ve been taught. There were so many possible endings to the teacher’s story, but we both accepted the traditional version, the justification that keeps women powerless: “Don’t do that or you’ll get hurt” is how we’ve been controlled for so long.
Consider an alternate version. We know the student was dedicated enough to her creativity to risk her husband’s wrath. Perhaps that dedication continued at home in spare moments and over time gave her the confidence and courage to leave him. Perhaps she eventually called the cops. Or, had the teacher not accepted the conventional narrative, she could have continued the lessons at the woman’s house, brought her books and materials so she could continue on her own, or called the cops herself to prevent or report an assault.
Until we saw a video of Trump bragging about sexual assault, millions of women had kept millions of secrets for far too long. Then Trump’s cavalier attitude challenged the conventional narrative. Assault victims realized they are not the ones who should be ashamed. Our country learned that assault is all too common and is perpetrated not just by some monster lurking in the dark, but by classmates, close friends, and those seeking the highest office.
In response to Trump’s attitude, and the way his campaign minimized his words, women began sharing their sexual assault stories. The stories flooded the internet and news media. They became the thing people talked and cried about, the thing over which friendships were forged or destroyed.
Collectively, we hurt. Collectively, we were no longer afraid of slut shaming and blame. By running for President and defending his words as just locker room banter, Trump inadvertently changed our narrative and, for the first time, a “women’s issue” dominated the Presidential debate.
All over the nation, men and women began to talk. Wives confessed to husbands, revealing – in some cases after decades – the truth about the assaults they had experienced. They spoke candidly and men did too. In some instances, relationships imploded. In others, the partners became closer. Men said things like, “I knew it happened to women, I just never imagined it could happen to you.”
In doing so, they came face to face with the insidious nature of rape culture. They realized they had perpetrated the myth that rape and sexual assault only happen to “those” women – the other ones, the ones that brought it on themselves because of what they wore, how they behaved, or the race and class to which they belonged.
Until Trump opened the dialog, too many men believed that only loose women get assaulted. Good girls – girls like their wives, girlfriends, sisters, daughters, and moms – don’t. Now more men finally understand that all women are victims. While not every woman has suffered a violent abuse of her body, she certainly knows unwanted touch, street harassment, and the vicious effects of “locker room” talk.
Virginity, church, and prayer are supposed to protect us, but they don’t because men – even well-meaning men – continue to assault. They talk about us, size us up, rate us like beef in a yard. All the things designed to keep us safe – Federal and state laws, chivalry, even marriage – fail because men don’t stop.
