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“Bye stalker!” said a girl leaving the common grounds today, a broad smile on her face and flirtatious glint her eye as she waved goodbye to the guy sitting down. He laughed a bit and returned the wave.
Such a casual exchange between two college students and yet so much more lies beneath it. We have created such a comfortable culture with words. To call someone a stalker used to be something frightening and now it's almost laughable and a joke. To call a girl a slut used to be something shameful, abhorred. Now it's a way to greet a friend at the door, “Hey slut!” with a huge smile cracking one's face wide open.
I'm not saying that we should take words completely seriously. I mean then we would all be extremely on edge, walking on eggshells for fear of saying something wrong. But words are a powerful thing in our culture. Just writing this right now I can feel myself trying to discover who I am inside in order to get my point across.
When I saw Nikki Giovanni on Friday night last week, she said something that stuck with me, “English will heal us.” She was talking about people who are sentenced to psychiatrists, about soldiers who come back from war, women who are distraught in their lives, men who are wrestling with how to express their emotions. Our world is stressful and through art, through English, through self-expression we can begin to heal. I like that I'm able to examine the world we live in through words. It makes me feel more whole.
Because of all of the above, I've been able to analyze what comes out of my mouth. I try not to say, “You guys”, I try not to say “dude” as much, I am trying to say she or he more, but this all just me personally. Words can be offensive, can hurt, can make someone laugh, can create connections. That's what they do; create.
So when someone says, “Hey stalker” or “What's up bitch?” it's creating a culture that's okay for men and women to separate each other. It can also reinforce the patriarchal society we live in.
From Arabian Nights:
Harun: What makes kings? Sympathy: Words. Harun: What makes the world? Sympathy: Words. Harun: What can destroy an empire? Sympathy: Words.
Words, words, words. Carefully chosen, wonderfully expressed, and divinely used.
And here I thought that prostitution only pertained to older women and young women in other countries or really distraught areas in our own country. The New York Times posted an article on run aways and specifically on children who are selling their bodies as a form of a commodity. Women have such a hard time not viewing their bodies as objects themselves in our society. I mean look at the advertising industry and the way they display women on a daily basis. A woman is a manikin to the clothing industry, she is an incubator for the growing population, she is the care giver and servant in general to men.
So really its no wonder that these runaways are selling themselves; how else are they to make a wage? They need to give into the male gaze and practically “work with what they got” so to speak. But what does this say about this women in our country? Are they nothing more than just a vagina that is supposed to be used in order to get ahead or even just survive in our society? It makes women prisoners to their own bodies. We can't own them ourselves. We can't even be seen to have respect or intelligence. We're seen as bodies first, mind second in most cases (if not all). This can be traced back to the bible when Adam and Eve bit into that damn apple and suddenly realized they were naked. Oops! And thus we're stuck with Eve's curse, aka menstrual period, aka being on the rag, aka riding the crimson wave or as more widely known, “that time of the month”. This once a month bleeding does in fact hinder us from time to time, but in other countries it holds women back for up to a week (if not more). How bodies are traps, are open wounds, and an entertainment hole.
Getting back to the issue of prostitution; how can we help eradicate this dilemma? It's legal in Nevada already through licensed brothels and in Rhode Island the act of sex for money isn't considered illegal, but being pimped and being part of a brothel is – it's a huge distinction, no? Yeah … right. It just shows how much a woman's body is really respected. Of course I'm not saying that there aren't guys out there who aren't selling their bodies for money, but when the term prostitute comes to mind, one doesn't think of a well dressed man, standing on the corner waiting for a high class woman to pick him up.
Pimps. It ain't so hard out there for them. Such a highly revered term in our society. “What a pimp!” or “That house be pimpin!” or “Pimp my ride dawg!” In the article, the pimps act as though they're helping the young girl out. One was quoted saying, “With the young girls, you promise them heaven, they’ll follow you to hell...It all depends on her being so love-drunk off of me that she will do anything for me.” She will do anything for you? Love is a lure for them. It makes women more attached to the men. One girl that was interviewed said that she her boyfriend had turned into her pimp and sold her body to other men. A pimp who was interviewed who had been serving the last 40 years in prison for sex trafficking was quoted as saying, “Seems more despicable to me to give something so valuable away as opposed to selling it.” So a woman's body is seemed as something valuable, something that should be sold. Great, lemme just go get my check book and you can fill in the numbers. How much is a woman worth?
What we have developed in our society is for women to reliant on men. Prostitution is the simplest form of such an act and we have branched out from there making it more convoluted. But we need to garner respect for ourselves before we can expect anyone else to respect us. Thus, we need to stop being complicit. Takes a lot though. What does being complicit entail? If we wear make-up are we falling into the patriarchal trap? If we wan to “look cute”, are we trivializing ourselves? The answers to these questions are different for each individual and are based on education, inner feelings and emotions, and a resistance to how the outside world is likely to react.
The Bay Area, considered one of the most progressive and safest urban meccas to raise your child, has seen it's most disturbing juvenile crime of the year. Over the weekend, a 15 year-old girl was raped, beaten and robbed during Richmond High School's annual homecoming dance in an alley adjacent to the school property, by at least 4 males while at least 15 others stood by and watched.
According to the Richmond Police Department, no one tried to stop the assault, help the victim or call or go get help after leaving the scene. The assault lasted over two hours and was only reported to the police after someone heard others "reminiscing" about the attack. When the police arrived they found the girl, unconscious under a bench. They were able to apprehend one young man fleeing from the scene, Manuel Ortega, 19, and another young man, 15. Both being charged with the sexual assault.
Parents, have you ever told your sons, that NO means NO when a women refuses to have sex with you? Have you told your sons that when she can't answer for herself, because she is too sick, too intoxicated or too injured to say anything, that that equals a NO? Parents, have you told your sons that when they see another young man not accepting that NO for an answer or forcing himself on a woman too impaired to say anything, to intervene on the woman's behalf or if necessary to go get the proper help? Parents, have you told your sons that even if they don't participate they are just as responsible when they don't do anything to stop it?
Children do not innately know right from wrong until somebody intervenes to guide them. It is our job, parents, community, society, to teach our children right from wrong; to equip them with the courage and the power to tell their peers what is right and wrong or the sense to get an adult who will do so when they cannot.
At least 15 young men watched and/or participated while a 15 year-old female classmate was raped, beaten and robbed. And not one of them reacted to save her? To stop her from being attacked? None of them had any empathy? They could not look at the situation from the girl's perspective or check themselves on how they would react if that female was their mother, sister, aunt or even daughter?
Davey D just wrote on his website about how "troubled youth become troubled adults" when reviewing the situation around the "balloon boy" debacle. A media saturated with violent, sexist, nihilistic images will create a society with violent, sexist, nihilistic individuals. And unfortunately these images permeate our youth and tell them that people are worthless and disposable.
When the President goes to war and kills millions of people based on lies, when levies are left unsecured to kill whole communities, when music tells them to smoke dope, shoot people and have meaningless intimacies, when schools are closed and prisons are erected in their place, when football players breed animals for the sole purpose of watching them kill each other, when CEO's create schemes to rake in their employees cash and then split with the money right before the company folds, when the most popular video games require you to kill and steal to win at the highest level, how do we expect our children to act and react when the lives of their peers are put in their hands?
It takes a village to raise a child because a village is where a child is raised.
At times like these (that time of the month) I tend to develop a huge hatred for my ovaries. The first day of cramps reminds me that this is a test for contractions and gives me more reason to not want to birth any children of my own. I've been tossing and turning for over 4 hours now, trying to get into that deep sleep where pain seems to magically disappear, but I wake up every 20 minutes or so, discovering a new twinge of agony jabbing in lower abdomen and lower back which I have now deemed The Belt-O-Cramps.
I've been thinking about getting my tubes tied. I don't mean this in a joking way either, I'm completely serious. I want to strictly adopt on my own once I become financially stable and have a steady enough job to support myself and a child (I will test the job in the first few years by getting a kitten and then go through the lengthy, overwhelming process of adopting ... or so I have concluded thus far).
However, upon even just thinking of the possibility of tying thy tubes it makes me think about all of the women out there who can't naturally produce like I might be able to ( I haven't tested whether I can have a kid and I'd like to keep it that way through my college and possible grad years). Thanks to taking all of these women's studies classes, I have had my mind open to certain privileges that I hold and the right and natural ability to have a child if I wish to is one of them. Women are constantly reminded through the monthly cycle that they can bear children and its an idea that does conflict many of them. Some find that their once a month menstruation is Christmas (thanks Jaime) and some find it a curse for the child that they may want.
I'm conflicted with this topic, but in the end I have to do what I want and what is best for my situation. I am only 21 years old; I don't have to decided on what to do with my body just yet nor do I have the funds to do so. For now I will be bitter that 5 am is slowly approaching and ticking closer and my cramps still haven't subsided. I think my ovaries are reflecting my inner anger at the idea of how uncomfortable I find my body at this moment; it's a vicious cycle (pun completely intended). I sometimes say that its moments like this that make me hate being a woman, but I think I've come to terms with the fact that it makes me endure pain I otherwise wouldn't encounter. It makes me stronger, makes me work though it whether its riding to school for class, typing a note on facebook, or reading Masterpieces by Sarah Daniels.
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