I'm Judging You (14 page)

Africa is home to such beauty and cultural diversity and great people, but the stories about it from folks looking in are far too negative far too often. There's an oft-used quote: “Until the lion tells his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” The hunters keep telling tales of despair about Africa.

I was born and bred in the Motherland, and it will always have my heart. My roots are planted there even as my feet are here, and I am a proud Naija gal! I wish people who have the means would travel more and see the expanse of that great continent for themselves. Maybe then folks would stop talking about and treating Mama Africa like a bald-headed, no-edges-having stepchild with lice and gout. Maybe then we could change the conversation. But until we do, consider yourselves judged.

 

10. Rape Culture Is Real and It Sucks

When I was a senior in college, I was trained as a mandated reporter and a workshop facilitator for a program that taught kids how to stay “safe, strong and free” from abuse. We went to grade schools in Champaign-Urbana and taught kids who were in kindergarten through fifth grade that they have a right to feel safe about their bodies. We also emphasized that their feelings about how someone touches them, including trusted adults, are ALWAYS valid. After each workshop, we invited them to come talk to us one-on-one about anything. I remember when a six-year-old divulged to me that her father touched her “down there.” I tried to keep my face from falling as she spoke to me. It was the first time I had to call my supervisor and draft a report. Thankfully, her father was already in jail for it
—
but unfortunately, that was more of the exception than the rule.

I am judging us for needing such an important program, because we're living in a world where the cycle of sexual abuse thrives and rape culture is considered a myth by too many. There is a continuum of cultural attitudes that facilitate abuse, like those of a father who touches his daughter sexually, and it starts with seemingly trite things that include catcalling.

It is an unfortunate rite of passage for girls to be walking down the street and have a guy you've never met yell something at you. He wants to get your attention, and he will do it by jeering at you. Sometimes he's in a car at a red light. Sometimes he's at his job, which you have to walk by to get to where you're going. Other times, he's just loitering, and you happen to walk by him. Far too many of us have also experienced the negative response that can come from a guy who feels ignored or rejected when we do not seem all that flattered by his remarks: “Well, fuck you too, then!” All because we did not give him the attention he felt entitled to.

There are so many people who cannot seem to fathom how we can be so “sensitive” about something like being told we're beautiful or sexy by a random dude. When women are walking down the street in the morning/afternoon/night/ever, minding our own business, one thing we are not asking for is folks' opinions on our appearance
—
yes, even if you think we look amazing. People will say we should be flattered that someone found us so attractive that they were moved to yell about it. Being street-harassed is not a blue ribbon, nor does it prove you have the looks of Miss America. There is no rhyme or reason to it, and it is not special. I've walked out my house looking like “whodunnit and why” and men will still catcall. It's like some of them feel like if they don't holla at someone for a day, their “talk to a girl” muscle will atrophy and become a gummy worm.

“Hey, mama! What's your name?” and “Damn, girl! You sexy as hell!” are not, and have never been, appropriate pickup lines. Do you think my ass looks amazing in these jeans? Well, great. But you do not need to let me know, strange man. Jesus invented brains so they could be the protective chambers for our thoughts. Imagine if everything we thought, we said. Our mouths would give up the ghost from too much activity. You can shut up and keep those thoughts to yourself or tell your diary. “Dear diary, her yansh was amazing.” See? Simple.

Street harassment is not flattering, because it speaks to the fact that men see our presence as an opportunity for sexual advances. In a world where most girls get catcalled before they even get their first periods, you have to admit there is a problem. Girls are being sexualized by random toads and goats on the streets and told to
smile
about it. Our bodies do not exist purely for the objectification of men, and if we cannot even go a day without being made to feel uncomfortable, how can we feel like we are safe?

I do not wake up on any day with the intention of making you happy by looking at me. So contrary to you thinking you're blessing my day with your praises, please know that you are just going to make me roll my eyes. I get that “us boy, you girl,” but this is not caveman times, you are not strictly ruled by your penis, and you have free will. This mind-set is why a girl can be sent home from school to change her tank top because her principal thought her shoulders would distract her male classmates and their rampant hormones. It's as if we expect the male system to run on autopilot when it comes to arousal, and that the flooding blood to their nethers will render them unable to deal. Meanwhile, girls are told to watch how we dress and manage ourselves
—
and apparently every guy who can see us
—
so as not to disturb the boys.

Usually, when we talk about street harassment being wack as hell, men will ask, “So you mean I can't talk to any woman I see on the street? What if I am mesmerized by her and want to learn more?”

I just wonder if they realize that a random sidewalk and someone who is clearly headed elsewhere is not a good pickup situation. I mean, how many love stories begin with, “He yelled at me from his car as I was going to work?”

If you insist on meeting that lady who just stole your heart at first sight, do it openly and in a way that is not threatening. Not from behind and not sneakily. Our nerves are bad because truthfully, sometimes our lives are in danger, and some of us have past traumas that may trigger us to have a negative response to your approach. Give a woman ample space as you approach her and politely say, “Hi. I saw you and I think you're pretty/beautiful/gorgeous. I would love to take you out on a date/to the movies/for coffee. Are you interested?” If she says no, respect it and say good-bye. Don't throw a tantrum like a four-year-old who didn't get dessert for breakfast. If she says yes, give her your number so there's no pressure on her to acquiesce from fear. Who knows? Maybe she'll be on
Say Yes to the Dress
in two years. But that is not how it usually goes.

Street harassment is a problem that is annoying at minimum and that at its worst can be extremely dangerous. There are women who have been injured or even killed by men who did not like their response to their catcalling. Let's think about that: men have been so enraged by not getting positive attention from
strangers
that they have gone as far as to inflict bodily harm on them. This sense of entitlement is the crux of rape culture. Men feel entitled to the attention of women, and they have been programmed to expect that they have some sort of ownership over us. Rape culture is the prevailing attitude that women exist primarily to please men, and therefore are not equal human beings with agency over their own bodies.

Rape culture does not mean every man is a rapist. It does mean that we're surrounded by a cultural atmosphere that perpetuates and enables the harming and violation of girls and women physically, emotionally, and sexually. (Men are also victims of this toxic mind-set.) Rape culture makes it easy for people who
are
abusive to injure women and makes it hard for women to feel safe. I am judging people who don't recognize that this is another system of oppression that we live in and that it should be taken seriously. I am endlessly side-eying people who are not trying to be a part of the solution, because they don't even want to acknowledge that there is a problem. Women feel vulnerable, and we have more than enough reason to.

Let's talk about rape. It's a harsh, ugly word that comes with harsh, ugly visuals. Rape is a violation of someone's body. Someone is raped when they have a sexual act performed on them or are forced to perform a sexual act without their consent or against their will. It is also what happens when an adult has sexual contact with a child, because that power dynamic is so unequal that the Libra scales would break. A child
cannot
consent to having sex with an adult. IT IS RAPE. Rape is not about being horny or wanting sex. It's about rapists wanting to dominate and exert control over others whom they perceive to be weaker. It is about theft, because they're taking something that is not theirs to have, yet they feel like it belongs to them. It is about ownership, which is reinforced when the rapist is protected by law.

The majority of rapists are men. Not to be confused with “the majority of men are rapists.” Let that be clear. We are not pointing the finger at each of you. But your peen brethren are the ones who are being violent toward women and girls and sometimes toward other men and boys.

One out of five girls and one in twenty boys are victims of child sexual abuse.
16

Those kids are not just being caught up by stranger danger. They are being violated by trusted adults.

The fact that it surprised me that the father of that little girl I spoke with after the workshop is in jail for his crime of violating her is saddening. Girls and women are being violated constantly, at varying levels of severity, and we are dealing with a society that does not protect us, does not punish our violators, and sometimes even protects predators. We think of rape as the act of a boogeyman who is lurking in alleys, snatching up unsuspecting women who are dressed too tawdrily like he's Dora the Explorer's twisted Swiper, just waiting behind the dumpster. But everyday people can be rapists, and 70 percent of women who are sexually assaulted are victimized by someone they know: family members, friends, neighbors, acquaintances. It's fathers, uncles, and cousins, not necessarily unfamiliar pedophiles and predatory felons. These are people who are embedded in our lives and people we trust who are hurting us. It's hard for people to grasp this, because then they'd have to admit that they live surrounded by, and may be a part of, this problem.

This is why whenever a woman says she's been raped, people will jump down her throat to disprove her. Surely she cannot have been raped by that straight-A student, or that star basketball player, or that sergeant. People rush to discredit survivors and protect perpetrators because it's easier to deny that something happened than to deal with the fact that there are predators in our midst.

Unfortunately, all this victim-blaming does is reinforce the cycle of fuckshit. A man rapes a woman, the woman speaks up about it, the woman is then vilified, the man walks. And then when other victims of sexual abuse clam up and decide not to come forward, we have the nerve to ask why. We use their years of silence as proof that they are probably making it up, and it is maddening.
Maddening
. In spite of the fact that less than 5 percent of rape allegations are found to be false, we still cast doubt on the woman who dares to assert that she was violated.

In this environment, why
would
anyone feel confident about speaking up about being sexually abused? All we'll do is revictimize them. When a woman is raped, and people ask what she did to get raped, a thousand angels do a collective *wall-slide.*
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No one has ever asked to be raped. Did she drink too much? Sure, she might have. But it's her prerogative to drink, and it's everyone else's responsibility to know that she cannot make meaningful decisions if she's drunk or passed out. Someone who is unconscious cannot consent, and pointing the finger at her is disgusting. The questionable personal decisions we sometimes make do not excuse the bad decisions others make, especially when it comes to how they interact with us. It's like if someone is standing too close to the train tracks and I push them when the train is coming: it does not matter how foolish it was for them to stand so close to the rails. I had no right to send them falling.

The fact that when a woman is molested she's automatically asked what she was wearing is appalling. Who gives a fuck what she had on? It coulda been nothing but body paint; it makes no difference. Unless she gives consent, it is rape. You could be rocking footie pajamas, or a thong only, and you still won't be inviting someone to sexually assault you. Why? Because our bodies belong to us, and we have a right to demand that others keep their hands, peens, and whatever else to themselves. We give clothes a lot of power
—
too much power. No one wakes up and says, “Today, I will be forcefully penetrated. Let me put on these tiny shorts. They'll make it easier.” Clothes should not determine your humanity or how much agency you are allowed to have over your own body. People say things like, “Well, if she dressed respectably, then maybe she'll be treated with respect.” But people have been raped while wearing pinstriped suits. People have been raped while wearing military uniforms. People have been violated in nun's habits or burqas, which only expose their eyes. It does not matter. “Respectability” in clothing choice does not determine one's safety, because we live under a stifling system of oppression that says women's love pockets are for the taking. The idea that victims of violent crimes
—
whether rape at the hands of a man or murder by police who thought sagging pants makes you a criminal
—
asked for it is crazy. NOPE. I am not here for it.

To rub salt in the wound, sexual assault survivors have to deal with a broken process that does not get them anything resembling justice. It should be no wonder that some victims take years to come forward and others might never divulge that they were violated. People who have been raped have very little, if anything, to gain by speaking up about what happened, and they have everything to lose. They are discredited and made to feel like they're the ones on trial as their characters are assassinated. Rape is not a tool that women use to get the upper hand, because there is no winning for women. So operating from a place of disbelief when women and girls say “I've been assaulted” is hustling backwards.