Rape Culture- Or, Every Day Life

So, a man tried to mug me once. But I'll get back to that.

There's been a post going around, called "Through a Rapists' Eyes". I read it for the first time about three years ago, and felt very enlightened. A little more nervous than usual, but enlightened. The post claims that after many interviews with already jailed rapists, there is now a list of helpful safety tips to keep women out of danger.

The advice can be summed up as saying, women: keep your hair in a crew cut, don't dress like a slut, and carry a baseball bat. Also, don't go anywhere, ever. Except of course if you have your hair in a crew cut, don't dress like a slut, and carry a baseball bat. And even then stairways are still off limits.

So back to the mugging- oh wait, that's just the short story. Let's do the long story first.

The long story is that I am more than aware that I am a four foot, eleven and three quarters white girl with very little muscle mass and relatively perky boobs. The long story starts when I lived near the projects in south side Chicago and wasn’t allowed to cross the street because it was too dangerous. The long story begins with whatever conversations inspired by fear of the unknown (something about the girl killed in our backyard two weeks before we moved there) made me consciously decide not to walk with my hands in my pockets when I was eleven because it might not be safe.

(If you're wondering, the worst thing that happened in dangerous, inner-city Chicago is when a classmate put grease in my hair and it took a week to come out. I just wanted to be black. I also made friends with a homeless man with the brain development of a nine year old that bought me a shake from McDonalds because he had a crush on me. It was cute. Neither of those things have anything to do with what I'm talking about.)

That was all growing up stuff. Cut to high school, where I had to stand in line for gym class my freshman year and a boy (bigger than me, but not by much) would pick me up from behind every day because he thought it was funny.

Every day. Because he thought it was funny. My god, is it really that hilarious day in and day out to hold someone with their arms pinned to their sides trying to ask you nicely to put them down? In hindsight, I should have kicked him in the balls. But you don't do that when you're a freshman girl trying to be cool and go along with the joke. You should, but you don't.

Now cut to my first missions trip, my first time leaving the country. The rules were always the same. Never go alone. Always walk with a man. Carry a purse with a strap that can go across your body because those are harder to steal, don’t look people in the eye, don’t wear any shorts or skirts or dresses above the knee because that clearly means you are asking to be raped. This would have been a good time to add in the baseball bat advice, as well.

(Worst thing that happened on a missions trip was the heatstroke I got from wearing jeans instead of shorts. Also, when I freaked out because a Costa Rican boy kissed me on the cheek and I didn't know that was a culture thing.)

Then I went to college, where rape culture was totally different. Now it was lesbians and signs and Take Back the Night! with exclamation points. Because I'm little and vulnerable and like to travel, I took RAD: Rape, Aggression and Defense, better known as the self defense class for girls who should have kicked high school boys in the balls but didn't and now it's their chance to get some.

The class was a lot like the "Through A Rapist's Eyes" post, actually. I learned to walk with my keys held between my fingers in case I needed to punch someone, how to look under cars in the parking lot and what kind of locks I should use on my doors. I learned what to do if someone attacks you from the front, from behind, or if you are pinned to the ground. I even got to put on pads and practice what it would be like to be attacked and how I would defend myself. I pulled an A in the class after my final, which was kicking Scott the Public Safety officer in the balls (wearing pads, of course) and using some cool hammer fist moves. Scott is awesome and should be appreciated for his volunteer work, by the way.

Ok, back to Peru and the mugging story. Every day, I would walk three blocks from my house to the school I work at, and had done so for the last 10 months. I never listened to music with headphones, I always wore my backpack with both straps on my shoulders, and I always had my purse on one shoulder with my other hand holding on to it. I always remembered my RAD training and knew where to look and what to carry.

So this particular day, at 6am on my way to school, when I felt someone behind me, I would just like to say that I was awesome. I did not freak out, I defended myself, I held on to my belongings and held my ground. The guy finally gave up and ran away. I hope he’s embarrassed that he couldn’t rip off a tiny little gringa. Of course, my glasses were thrown off in the fray and I stumbled around in the grass like a blind rat looking for them again after he ran off, but we can forget that part. I then walked victoriously to school, bruised, beaten, shirt unbuttoned but purse in hand. Once I got to school, I cried like a baby and had someone drive me home again. But again, we can forget that part.

I know all of this seems a little incoherent, but let me try to bring it together. As much as I love self defense and kicking ass, I hate that it's become part of our culture. That even after being mugged, people asked me what I was doing there and why I was alone as if it was my fault some creep took it in his head to jump the tiny, vulnerable, supposedly rich girl. I hate that I still carry my keys between my fingers whenever I go walking, just in case. I hate reading articles online about how girls can't wear their hair in that ponytail or go out in that skirt and high heels because its too dangerous and invites the attention of a rapist. Once again, it almost sounds like it's our fault.

Girls have been living and breathing this kind of rape culture their entire lives, and I hope I'm not the only one sick of it. There's a lot of truth to the posters and signs we see at rallies around the world now, something about how putting curfews on women won't stop rape, but putting curfews on the men will. Not that I support that, but it is true. Teaching women to defend themselves is great, but teaching men to be good men would be even better.