"When my brother said that hewas tired of hearing about feminism,I told him that I was tiredof..."

“When my brother said that he

was tired of hearing about feminism,

I told him that I was tired

of hearing about women dying

in the middle of the street

because they had the strength

to say no to what they knew

they did not long for. He tells me

that maybe if they were not

outside on that day, walking down

the road in that moment, maybe

none of that would have happened.

So I tell him that when

I go to run errands on a Sunday,

to get milk and sugar for our coffee

and some man who is fed up

with hearing the word “no”,

touches my skin and says to me that he

just wants a chance, did I deserve

to be pushed down, to be beaten,

to be told that I am the reason

that there is so much evil in the world,

just because I wouldn’t give him

a moment to change my mind?

My brother looks at me

with sympathy in his eyes,

and I can see the understanding

forming beneath his mouth

when he says to me

that he never thought about it

in that way, and that he

never understood before now

why so many women are so afraid

of walking down the road

in the reveling sunlight.

So I tell him that he didn’t

have to think at all, but to

remember the next time he is

walking near a woman that he

desires that if she wants to

look the other way, don’t keep

moving yourself into her

sight, but to let her look at

the sky with the feeling

of deserved safety.”

- "I’m tired too," - Colleen Brown