We can’t accept the gall of those who treat women like an object

I am not going to comment on the John Suda case, and will let matters unfold, as they surely will.

But we cannot ignore the elephant in the room. We cannot sit by and NOT talk about what this is all about. This is about how some men feel they have a God-given right to coerce or subject women to uncomfortable, disturbing and in some cases, downright abusive situations. It is about the sexual harassment, often verbal and sometimes physical which many women go through from the time they are young girls.

I’m not just offering my own “opinion” here. This is being written after I have read countless stories being shared by women who have opened up in a safe environment on a closed Facebook page. They are stories which have made my own experiences growing up, and later in my teens, come flooding back. I had forgotten them, perhaps repressed them and, of course, that is what you need to do, unless you want to end up dwelling too much on the more unsavoury episodes.

The fact is that girls grow up surrounded by this kind of inappropriate male behaviour.

Like when an older boy in my high school stuck his hand out and groped me in the crowded hallway, while laughing in my face. I was maybe, oh, 13 at the time. It happened so quickly, I was too shocked and stunned to react. The feeling of being violated like that was so intense, and I was made to feel so ashamed, so dirty. But I had done nothing wrong, I told myself as I cried with a mixture of embarrassment and anger in the bathroom. And yet, for some reason, he felt he had the right to do that. The burning question of Why? stayed with me for a long time.

Or when a man leered at me when I was just a kid, not more than ten years old, with suggestive lewd comments which made me blush even though I did not know what the words meant, but instinctively understood the adult undertones.

Or when at 15, I began to babysit for a single dad who had been vetted accordingly, but on the third time, he tried to touch me inappropriately. I never went back again. I never told my parents. I’m convinced my father would have killed him.

Some men might find it hard to comprehend or try to dismiss it, but the fact is that girls grow up surrounded by this kind of inappropriate male behaviour. From the numerous anecdotes I’ve read, I am appalled by just how common it was and still is, although there is a measure of comfort in learning that we are not alone in having gone through these experiences. That it was not our fault that these things happened. That we were not inviting or (God, how I hate that word) “provoking” boys or men through some kind of unspoken signal: ‘here I am, do what you like’.

The line between right and wrong in today’s over-sexualized world where singers and actresses take it all off for the camera to sell CDs and films has become so very blurred

As girls we grow up fast, we mature fast, because we have to, especially when puberty hits. The shock to your brain cannot be described because you literally feel yourself losing your innocence in those few instances, and it is like you have crossed over to another dimension where you suddenly understand the meaning of that often-used phrase that boys/men “only have one thing on their mind”. There you are, struggling to understand your own confused thoughts about sexuality, while knowing full well that what you have been subjected to against your will is wrong, completely wrong.

But the line between right and wrong in today’s over-sexualized world where singers and actresses take it all off for the camera to sell CDs and films has become so very blurred, that I can understand how girls and young women have been conditioned to think that what used to be unheard of is now “normal”. No, it isn’t. At least, it shouldn’t be.

And it makes me want to scream when it is always the girls who are blamed for men not being able to keep their hands or comments to themselves. Just like we women have self-control and don’t go around touching every guy we see just because we like the way he looks, boys/men too need to learn some restraint. Ragel malajr jaqa’ (men are easily tempted) is a phrase I really have no time for. Oh, please. Men are not helpless or unable to curb their sexual appetites – that is just a convenient excuse to try and justify the unjustifiable.

I suppose the good thing that came out of those episodes I went through was that they taught me how to be more wary of potentially risky situations. I quickly learned how to spot a pervert and that radar has never failed me since. Because you know, it never stops, as you leave school, start working, and throughout your working life: sexual innuendos, vulgar jokes, “accidental” too close for comfort encounters, and even pornographic photos on the canteen bulletin board (were we supposed to find that amusing?).

Looking back, however, I think these episodes also helped me to become more assertive and able to stand up for myself over the years when confronted by behaviour or language which is out of line: something which every girl and woman needs to learn how to do. One of the retorts I have found to be most effective is when I ask the man whether he would like his wife/girlfriend/daughter to be spoken to or treated in that way at her place of work. It always shuts them up. Not putting up with it is the only way. We cannot continue to accept the sheer gall of those who think they have a right to treat all women like an object which is there at their disposal.

Talking about and sharing our experiences definitely helps, but we also need to go a step further and drum it into girls’ heads that no one has the right to touch them or talk to them in an obscene way. Their bodies are theirs, and theirs alone. And unless there is an atmosphere of mutual consent and an equal balance of power, they need to get out of there, and out of there fast.