I've been thinking about this for the past couple of weeks after having a really awesome and intense conversation with my friend the Baby-Eating Republican*a couple weekends ago. This was further highlighted for me in a conversation I had with my therapist last night. Ok, less of a conversation, more of a she accidentally hit a button, and I sort of exploded on her. Small explosion, but an explosion nonetheless.
See, we were talking about a recent bra-buying experience I had (I'll get back to the Baby-Eating Republican in a minute) where when I asked about demi-bras after politely declining the array of "lightly padded t-shirt bras," I was informed by the salesgirl that women with breasts as large as mine really shouldn't wear demi-bras, and that these lovely lightly padded "t-shirt" bras would be wonderful. I kept my cool, and managed to find some non-lightly padded, non-molded cup bras, and bought those because I had a coupon and they were on sale, and chalked it up to a poor selection.
My husband was incensed, however. "She might as well have called you a whore for wanting a demi bra!" He is recently come over to the Feminist side of the Force, so he's still very raw to things that, generally, I blow off.
In relating this story to my therapist, I explained that I hate the "lightly-padded" bras because the cups never fit my boobs right, and why is it so offensive to the world at large that I have nipples anyway? I'm a mammal, right? It happens, nipples, with mammals? Yes?
Now, I know what my therapist meant after talking it out but her initial response hit my "women are the gatekeepers of morality" button in a big way.
"Well, nipples can be very distracting for some men..."
That's as far as she got, before I exploded with, "Well, then some men need to pull up their big boy pants and learn how to interact with women as human beings and not as sex objects!"
I did mention that it's a great, big, shiny, red button with all these "Danger!" and "Warning!" signs around it right?
After I stopped to take a breath, and she explained that she just meant that some women are embarassed by sudden nipple-age and don't want to deal with jerks like that, I sat back and conceded the point.
Now, I'm still pretty cranky about the fact that women just accept as fact that they should police themselves in order not to elicit responses from men, and that that's why we might be embarassed about our nipples in the first place. But I can totally sympathize with and understand that there are days (months, years, lifetimes) where you just don't feel like dealing with the leering, ogling dickheads. However, I resent the HELL out of the idea that it's OUR responsibility as women to do whatever we can to prevent that leering, instead of men having the responsibility of not being those kinds of dickheads in the first place. Yes, I do get tired of stepping up and saying, "Hey, douchebag, my eyes are up here!" Which, I have to admit, is one of my favorite approaches, circumstances permitting. Even I know that there is a time and a place for that... Board meetings? Not so much.
But by beginning the conversation by saying that because men have issues with control and women's nipples that's why women like those bras, she hit me right in the shiny, red button. Had she begun with, "Some women are embarassed by..." or even if she'd said that some women think exposed nipples will screw up the image they're presenting, I don't think I'd have erupted like that.
Where does the Baby-Eating Republican come into this equation? No, he wasn't staring at my nipples. A couple of weekends ago, he and I shouted a conversation over the music at our local goth club, about rape prevention and rape survivors. He teaches self-defense, and has had rape survivors burst into tears, go fetal, and just about every other reaction you can imagine in his classes. And he cares very deeply about rape prevention. In fact, I think he would agree highly with a couple of the essays in "Yes Means Yes," and I need to loan that to him.
That said, he pointed out that one of his problems with Feminism and it's response to rape is that to him, being on the outside of all the discourse, it seems as though Feminism is telling women not to take responsibility for their safety. He pointed out that while he doesn't expect to get raped if he goes out and gets stinking drunk, he could very well expect to get mugged or in a fight.
"All this stuff about you should be able to walk naked and drunk down a street is great, but we don't live in that world."
He's right, we don't. And I don't know any Feminist that will tell women that it's a good idea to walk naked and drunk down a street alone in any neighborhood. However, when we frame the conversation in terms of what "should be" instead of "what is," the message gets polluted when filtered through mainstream media. Then we get the cries of "Third Wave Feminists and Girls Gone Wild Feminism" and all that shit. The media want sound bites that will hook people through fear or outrage, and Feminists telling girls to go get blasted and be naked is plenty outrageous.
Yeah, you and I know that isn't actually what we're saying, but the media doesn't care. They want ratings, and filthy whore-mongering Feminists make ratings.
So, let's all of us, right now, vow to frame our talk of rape more carefully. I, and I think everyone else here, agree that women shouldn't be raped, ever. And I think we also agree that laying the onus of rape prevention on women isn't working, because no matter how much women do to protect themselves, rapists still rape women, and we need to frame the discussion in those terms.
That's another framing point. Let's quit "disappearing" rapists shall we? Women don't "get" raped, like it's an act of God or nature. Someone, a rapist, rapes them. It isn't a passive act, so quit using passive voice. "The victim was raped," should be "The alleged suspect" or "The rapist raped his victim." "The jury convicted Mr. X of raping..." Passive voice is sloppy and lazy writing... Sorry, former English Major.
Ok, there will be another post later about slut-shaming and the culture of "That won't happen to me, I'm not/don't do X."
*It's a term of endearment, really.
Mickey Schulz is a guest author for the California NOW blog; her opinions are not necessarily those of California NOW. Copyright Mickey Schulz, with permission granted to California NOW for use on this site.
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