Just Ignore It

It was determined from the beginning. I was weak, small, less. I need to be pretty, I need to smile, I need to not instigate the male gaze.

All my life I had heard the warnings, I’ve been taught to watch my drink at the bar, to cover up when I’m told, to not lead on. I’ve been taught the countless ways to try and avoid being harassed but none of them ever seemed to work.

The first time I remember being victimized was when I was at the innocent age of six. My family and I went to the beach for the day. Now seeing how I was six, most of my memory of that day is blinded, but there are few snippets I remember. The first was me and my sister feeding the ducks with this man much older than us. If I had to guess now I would say early thirties. I remember him throwing the bread at them with us, laughing, and just being incredibly nice in general. That was the first of three things I remember. The second was my sister and I in this shack with the man. It was dark and he was talking words I hardly remember, he kept moving close and smiling. I was scared. And outside I could hear my mom calling our names. I tell the man we need to leave but he insists otherwise. I remember running out of the shack, thankfully before anything could happen. Unless my memory shielded me from the rest of the memories in the shack as well. The last thing I remember was my mom screaming at the man and crying. I remember her telling my sister and I that the man was not our friend. We left the beach soon after that. I was six.

The next time I was harassed was when I was twelve. I was sitting on the bus. There were three of us in the same seat; I was near the window, a girl in the middle and a boy at the end. I’ve never talked to the boy, nor he me, but that didn’t stop him from extending his arm over the girls shoulder and landing his hand on my breast. I was twelve, hardly developed at the time but apparently it was good enough to be fondled. I felt disgusting and angry. The buy just laughed and the girl didn’t seem surprised. You see, the girl and the boy were friends, what he did to me must not have been the first time the girl has seen such behaviour from him.

I was thirteen and it was Halloween, I dressed up as a bumble bee. It was a short dress but I wore it with leggings and a cardigan because I was cold. I was trick-or-treating wth my friends when a group of boys came around the corner, upon seeing us they started howling and whistling. There was one boy in particular who stood taller than the rest and who’s gaze lasted too long. He took interest in me, making a point to smack my ass every time we passed them. I told him to leave me alone and when he didn’t I told him to go to hell. He laughed and kept doing it. It got to the point where I was so angry that I pushed him away, he was still laughing, and I ran home. My Halloween was ruined because I was too good of a treat for this thirteen year old boy to pass up on. It was a joke to everyone I told. Except my mother, furious as always but told me to ignore it. Advice that has ruined many lives, advice I refuse to take.

I was sixteen when I lost my virginity to my boyfriend of one month. It was at a party and I was drunk and it was an incredibly awful experience. My boyfriend left immediately after we were done, not waiting for me or talking to me for the rest of the night. He was busy rubbing his victory in to his friends. I was embarrassed and disgusted with myself. I wanted to cry. Since my first experience with sex was so horrid, I decided I didn’t want to do it again until I felt ready. I didn’t want to feel the way I felt that first night once again. I told my boyfriend thinking he would understand but if that was the reaction I got he would not be in this story. It was like a switch had flipped in his head and he got so angry. He shouted, saying I owe him for all he’s done, that he has been nothing but patient and kind. That I owed him. I owed him my body. When I had enough I went to leave but he grabbed my arms, slamming me against the wall and continued shouting. I would try to leave again but he would slam me even harder into the wall, even punching me in the stomach when he got real mad. I couldn’t breathe. He started trying to take my clothes off and covered my mouth when I began shouting for help. I was lucky though, it never went too far, but not because some knight in shining armour came to my rescue, but because I bit down so hard on his hand that I could taste his blood. He recoiled back, clasping his hand and calling me a bitch, but he didn’t try to come near me again. I took this moment as my chance to leave and I did. Never going back to his house again. And after I left, I had to walk for an hour-and-half home at night because he was the one who drove me to his house. I was cold and I was scared. Scared that some other man will come around and finish what my then boyfriend couldn’t. It was the most weak and vulnerable I ever felt. And I never wanted to feel like that again.

I could hear my moms voice echo in the back of my mind.

“Just ignore it.”

I always said that I wouldn’t take that advice but after what my boyfriend did, I started wondering if I ignored any signs that he was like this. Perhaps I have. I wouldn’t know, those words have been etched into my mind from birth that I started to wonder if I have always ignored this behaviour. Sure there were spots that stuck out more than others that I refused to ignore, but life as women is constantly being ogled at. It doesn’t matter where. Whether it’s being catcalled on the street, objectified in the movies, or even the comment of good men who still believed that women need to be protected. The behaviour I needed to ignore was everywhere. And if I want to be happy, I have to ignore it because paying attention to everything makes me furious and want to cry at the way people see me. I can’t read the news without my heart sinking and my skin burning hot. I don’t want to be miserable but I don’t want to ignore it any longer. I’m never going to win, am I?

Now, a while back I said “good men”, I say this because they are not all evil and feel that that fact needs to be heard. There have been many men that treated me with respect and humanely. They were kind and helped fight away the creeps with me. My friends, my family, strangers. However, I couldn’t ignore that these good men were still prone to the notion that women were two dimensional beings. They don’t mean to, I can admit, it’s because like us women they were programmed from birth as well. I came to this conclusion when my one of my good guy friends was surprised that I played video games, that I was on honour roll, that my friends (who are women) were very into sports. He was the one trying to explain to me what an optical illusion was, as if I never heard of it the nineteen years I’ve been alive.

This is the evidence of what society does. They tell you that women are weak, less, pretty and dumb and we believe it. I’m done believing it. I’m done putting up with it. And I’m done just ignoring it.