respect

Deanna Alvarado

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I like to believe I am a very vibrant human being. I believe in the word and action ‘excelsior’, or taking all the negativity and turning it into fuel to find the positivity; to find a silver lining. However, it is an extremely tedious task when there is a population of boys- (I refuse to call them men) who feel for some unknown reason, that they are entitled to my space. That they have this privilege to not only stare at woman like they are meat and nothing more, but to open their degrading and disrespectful mouths and yell out derogatory statements. A vibrant person should have the right to walk 3 classrooms down and heat up her lunch and feel safe in practicing that right. But instead I sit in a classroom with little to no people eating cold spaghetti because I feel powerless and small when I do it. When I walk to the microwave I get told to rest my backside against the wall so the people behind me will stop staring at my ass. And when I turn to look, see an entire group of boys staring at me like an object. Or today, April 18, 2017, I walked out of my classroom and a boy gestured at me and nonchalantly told his friend “that bitch has a fat ass.” I responded with “my name is Deanna not bitch” but even so it was beyond infuriating and made me want to punch him in the face because I know the pain of my fist would not be nearly as painful as what he said was. It was an unparalleled frustration. I left the room shaking in fury and saw my friend David who I have even more respect for because of the amount of respect he has for woman. I told David what I thought and felt about him in that moment, “David, you respect woman so much and I know it’s a really prevalent quality in your personality and I just want you to know I respect and appreciate that.” I praised him for it. Then it hit me, I praised a man for doing something all men should do everyday, all day. Respect woman. Not make the vibrancy dissipate because they were never taught to speak. Not make them feel powerless. Not make them think it’s their fault for wearing leans too tight, or a tank top in 80 degree weather. Not make them run to their next class with a red hot face full of tears. Not allow her to walk to and from class or heat up her lunch without being sexually harassed. When I spoke about this hours later I was told by David that maybe I “should have a guy heat up my food instead next time.” I was told by my mom to “heat up my lunch before leaving for school in the morning because it’ll be cold but not as cold and you won’t have to deal with all that.”

Moroccan mama

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Recently I went to Morocco with a couple of my friends. It was a great trip, but as a woman I hated the feeling of dependence I had as it was not safe to walk outside in public alone. The shop keepers there are very aggressive and always are quite forceful to getting you to go into their shop and buy things. We were walking down the street in front of one shop and took a picture of a beautiful mural outside that said “All wars are civil wars because we are all human”. The male shopkeeper told us to come inside and look at the rest of the art. After politely declining and telling him that we had no time because we were on our way to catch a cab, he got angry and said you have time to take a picture but not time to come into my shop? Then he turned to the guys I was with and told them that he thought I was not very smart. He spoke of me like I was not even there and it made me feel like he did not value me as a person, perhaps because I am a woman. It was an experience that stuck with me for a long time and inspired me to take action against sexism. That being said, I was treated quite nicely and respectfully by many other people in Morocco.

Sarah

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I was raped by my abusive husband for over a decade. I thought it was normal, I thought it was what was supposed to happen in a marriage because he told me it was. To him, women are things, not people. A woman has consented to sex because she has a ring on her finger. Afterall as he’s asked me dozens of times, “Can a man really rape his wife?” Yes, that was asked of me month after month year after year. It wasn’t until I truly understood what abuse was and what rape is that I was able to find my strength and get out of a horribly abusive and manipulative marriage. During this process of finding my freedom I’ve been shamed by “friends”, I’ve been told that it can’t be “that bad”, I’ve been told he’s changed and I should go back to him “for the kids”. And, possibly one of the worst was being told by a Guardian Ad Litem on the custody case that: “A man can only rape his wife once, after that its your fault for staying.” Yes this was said to me, in all seriousness. Sexism is everywhere. Its in our courts, its in the “justice” system that really just takes away rights of women rather than protecting the rights of women. Lies have been told about me and my children are not safe. Despite telling the courts about the abuse and the danger they turn a blind eye and my children are required to spend half their time with a man that currently abuses them. My personal fight is not over and my fight against a society that can raise a man like my estranged husband has only just begun. I will be teaching my daughters a new script. I will be teaching my daughters that their character matters more than their appearance. That a boy who hits isn’t showing you he likes you, he’s showing you he doesn’t respect you. I will be teaching my daughters boundaries and how to respect herself despite what others will say and do to try to damage that self-respect. I hope that this is only the beginning of world-wide change. No one should have to face this alone. I am behind you men and women that are facing abuse. I will stand with you.

herstory

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This is minor but when even the bbc, who are a publicly funded TV channel in the UK constantly calls female athletes at the olympics girls, it shows how some men automatically belittle women. They don’t even realise how insulting calling full grown women ‘girl’ is. I’ve challenged men in various jobs in the past when they have used ‘girl’ to refer to me or ‘girls’ for teams I have worked in that are mainly female. In one job I had if you listened to the senior staff, who just happened to be all men, our team must have been called ‘the girls’ the amount it was used, also the male member in our team of 4 was clearly not part of the team, so we did well constantly operating with just 75% of the required staffing levels at all times. What really annoyed me was when a younger woman who was part of the team tried calling us all ‘girls’, she got reminded even the junior member of the team was technically an adult at 18 years old, after that she didn’t use ‘girls’ within my earshot. I am glad to say in my experience the use of ‘girl/girls’ in the workplace seems to mainly be by men 40 plus, or if a younger male does use it my quick rebuke stays with them. Sadly though many women even those older than me are afraid to pull men up on this or have given up trying to get men younger than themselves to treat them with a basic level of respect.