It's Been 10 Years Since...

I wasn't going to make a post this month or at least not till the end of the month. I wanted to focus a little on my social life and uni work for a bit. However, with Harvey Weinstein being a major focus of the news at the moment and my lectures in Gender, Body and Society I wanted to write a very personal post about my past experiences and interactions with men which resonates with far too many other women (and men, because let's not forget they don't escape this completely).

Warning!! I should probably warn anyone who does decide to read on that this is a sensitive topic and there could be triggers throughout the post such as assault, harassment and rape but I will not be going into too much detail. However it is a very long post.

Lets start!

In 2007 I was a naive 17 year old. Quiet and shy but was attempting to come out of my shell and do what other people my age were doing. I went to college to do my highers (a Scottish level of education) and I met this guy which I guess I would say was my first somewhat serious relationship even though it was rather brief. He is now in prison for killing a girl who would not have sex with him. Now, with him... I could call myself lucky. I am alive. I did not suffer what other girls have suffered because of him. He played with me in a different way. Emotionally and manipulatively. I thought he treated me the way he did because of how quiet I was. But I learned that it wasn't me... it was not my fault because other girls were treated in the exact same way. I used to write poetry and there was one I wrote after an incident one night (which occurred after we broke up) and when I read it back after finding out about the murder I got chills. You can read the poem here. I was still pretty young here and do not believe for a second that I am actually that good at writing poetry.

When I first found out what he had done, I was frozen. I left college the first time because I couldn't stand to be in the same room (even though we became "friends" later on) yet when his story broke in the news I was back at the same college. I struggled to be in that building for a few months whilst his story continued to be reported.

When I was about 17-18

My interactions with males behaving in such a way does not start there nor does it end there. That is the worrying thing about this. How many women have experienced this? How many times? Yet, we still do not push enough to change our society. Our media still sexually objectifies women therefore if it's constantly on our televisions, our magazines, newspapers, social media then how are we supposed to expect men to understand that we are not objects of desire and we are not objects that you can exercise your power over.

When I was at school boys used to 'pester' me through physical means and through texting and (I'm showing my age here) MSN. I've had my drink spiked and been sexually assaulted and worse. I've been followed home at night by a strange guy who kept asking me to do stuff for him and these are just the memorable ones that really stick in my mind. It took me till I was coming up to my mid-20's that none of this is down to how I look, dress or behave.

I also want to talk about Mayim Bialik's NY Times article about Harvey Weinstein which you can read in full here.

Now I know after this paragraph Bialik goes on to say that she thinks women should be able to wear what they like and flirt how they want but her tone still comes across as iffy. It's as if she's saying if you're not a "perfect 10" then you're not attractive enough to gain unwanted attention which is not true. I don't reach those high standards of beauty along with other women who have experienced harassment. It is not always about beauty. It's power and it's dominance and I don't think there was anything else I could have done to have avoided what I've experienced.

We have been sharing our stories and support across Twitter this week with the MeToo hashtag. It shows that it's not only those who are in the film industry but it happens within our workplace, our educational institutions, our streets and also our own homes. We need society to change, we need women, children and men to be able to feel safe wherever they are. We shouldn't have to cross the road out of fear or have our keys in our hand just in case. Change doesn't happen overnight but we need to start. We need to educate.

There's some great TedTalks which I would recommend anyone to watch such as Caroline Heldman's The Sexy Lie and Julia Hardy's How Sexism Affects Us All. If you have any more to recommend please let me know.

Thank you for reading my post. I'm not sure if it's entirely coherent or structured that well but I wanted to do a post on this. If you want to ask me anything or share your story I am happy to listen. I am happy to offer my support. We all need a little more support when it comes to this.

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