#and if anything that points to a sexualization across class: rural working class women with rude good health

[saltcherry]

my hot take on ‘can you use food words to describe skin color, especially of nonwhite people or characters’ is, you probably can do it in a reasonable way, it just depends on how racist the rest of your writing is whether is comes off as creepy. like it’s well-established in English literature to describe skin “as white as milk” and “cheeks as rosy as apples” etc., typically to describe young women or girls. the fetishistic tone is not going to hinge solely on the words chosen (of course, associations have to be considered). the real issue is that the fetishization of white women and of Black women or brown women operates differently. the words used to do it are different. the associations with sexuality are different (y do u think white women who want to assert sexuality often choose to do it by either embodying stereotypes associated with women of color or by directly appropriating aspects of nonwhite culture?). so really the challenge for the writer is not to remove all purple descriptors from their language, even stilted or outdated ones, and their associations (impossible task) but to be good enough at their craft to challenge, remake, critique, etc. those associations. like idk it seems like a very hard task and that’s why the advice is to simply remove that language! however it’s more interesting to try to grapple with language imo. and ultimately more productive because many many types of words carry associations of otherness, sexuality, prejudice, etc. when applied to nonwhite vs white people, Black vs nonBlack people, etc. the language problem can only be understood when you know this and only solved when you work at it with deep knowledge. (I guess the reason some people balk hard at “I don’t get why this is perceived as racist” over e.g. “she had skin like chocolate” is because they are lacking that deep knowledge accrued from reading a lot. related: if you don’t read a lot, and you write with that type of language, without knowledge either conscious or unconscious of those biases, will you replicate them? form new associations? is knowledge a curse, lol?

[snakeandravenreviews-blog]

An Ember in the Ashes - Raven Speaks **DNF Review**

So, yes. I DNF’d one of the most hyped series of 2017/2018. And I’m not even mad about it. (Also, to be fair, I read well over half of the book before stopping. So it’s not as if I read 20 pages and decided all of these things.) I will preface this review and make a ~disclaimer~ to note that this entire review is my own opinion. I don’t mean to offend anyone with my thoughts and I don’t mean to completely demean Sabaa Tahir and her work; I was not a fan of this book for several reasons and I want to make sure they come across as valid and not just nit-picky, annoyances. If you do not agree, that’s fine and I am glad that the book worked for you! **This review will contain some spoilers**

I will start by saying I have nothing against Sabaa Tahir, I just didn’t like her book. I already posted a review on my goodreads which can be found here if you are so inclined to read my very dysfunctional initial review. But I wanted to sit down and sort my thoughts out a little more gracefully and structurally so that I can understand why I didn’t like what I read, and how I can accurately display those feelings without being a jumbled mess. I have my thoughts split into sections and they will be bolded with the sub-points underneath.

Firstly, the book is just simply overhyped. At best, it is an okay book with mediocre word building, lazy characterizations that offer no growth or depth for the reader to latch onto, and a world that is haphazardly thrown onto the page with no real descriptions that allow the readers to be fully immersed in the setting. The book has a lot of potential, but sadly that potential was greater and more positive than the actual execution. 

The word building was nothing special. I saw people on youtube and even goodreads RAVING about Tahir’s superb word building, and I was expecting a lot more than I got. “The silence of the catacombs is as vast as a moonless night, and as eerie.” Like, it’s nice but that’s about it. There are little pockets like this moment where I’m like, “oh, wow, yeah that’s cool,” but then the rest is so bland that it doesn’t even matter. “His tracks zigzag like a struck deer in the dust of Serra’s catacombs.” It’s trying, it really is, but it’s not working.

The characterizations I will go into greater detail when I talk about the characters themselves, but overall they were just lacking the depth and growth that not only most characters have, but most (all) people have as well. They were just stock, 2D characters that stayed the same throughout the novel, and overall came across as bland and unlikeable. 

The world is what really made me disappointed with this book. The premise is interesting and the entire world and the way it was structured, in theory, had all the potential to be the greatest series of the year as it was hyped to be. But the reality is that the world only gave a surface level immersion that left me unsatisfied. I will go into greater detail on this soon.

We have so many unfinished topics and characteristics of the world that it makes for more questions than satisfaction: Who are the Augurs, really? How did they come into being? How are they able to overthrow the emperor, but then allow him to also retaliate? How do they have magical powers? Why is the emperor being overthrown because he has “no male issue,” but Helene is in the running to become emperor?

What does the Empire export? What do the people make? What is the currency? How do they pay for things? Is the world more city or rural based? Why do the “trials” focus more on violence and ability to kill than they do on how to successfully run an Empire - if the trials are to find a new emperor? 

Who are the Scholars? Why can they no longer read and write, but are still belittled and oppressed for that very reason (being able to read and write)? What was Darin doing for the Resistance/not for the Resistance that was bad enough for him to be caught? Why were Laia and Darin’s parents and sister get caught and killed? 

Why does Laia constantly talk down to herself about “leaving Darin” when he told her to run so she would not be captured as well?

Secondly, serious topics were given half-assed execution. Tahir had several weighty topics that she introduced in the book, but had some of the worst execution in the addressing of those topics. Most specifically, she constantly mentions rape and the threat of rape in the book, but there’s such a lackluster implementation of that situation that causes it to lose its severity and importance as an issue. She also depicts violence as commonplace in the world, but is very inconsistent with how it is rendered.

Rape seems to be something that Tahir doesn’t fully understand. There are several times where Laia, the lead female character, is told that she will probably be raped by the students at the school (because they are known for doing that constantly to slaves/anyone) because she is “so beautiful,” and rape doesn’t really have anything to do with looks. Yes, looks do factor into why men and women are raped, but overall it is because the rapist is seeking dominance, control and power over the victim. They target people who seem or appear weak/easily manipulated so that they can take this power and control that much easier, but many do enjoy when their victim “puts up a fight” (as Marcus does when he attempts to rape Laia). Tahir constantly having both male and female characters use Laia’s beauty as the reason she will be raped also completely ignores the realities of wartime rape that happened in historical time periods such as this world that Tahir is basing her novel off of, as well as current war culture. Again, it all centers around dominance, power and control and equating rape only to looking beautiful takes away from the harsh reality that rape presents. It’s honestly uncomfortable to read, over and over again, rape being threatened and promised as a commonplace occurrence, and then for the actual occurrence to be halfway approached as if the author is afraid or hesitant to write such an action. The times that Tahir did have the characters physically act on the threats, it was really lacking any sort of stable or credible threat that these characters really meant what they “promised.”

Violence was a big theme within this book/world, but was also existing in unnecessary ways and sometimes only mentioned for effect. Where Tahir is shy on sexual assault, she is overly confident on physical violence and gruesome acts. In the beginning, a young boy has deserted the Blackcliffs school and is whipped to death in front of the entire student population and it is quite gruesome. This scene primarily served to remind Elias what will happen to him should he decide to desert the school as he wishes to do (something he constantly battles with the entire book), and also gives the reader a look at how the world operates with regards to power structure. The beating itself was just unnecessarily grotesque and so clearly written out; Elias “cannot look away” for the fear that those watching him will find him disloyal, so the reader is forced to see, vividly, the death of this 11-year-old boy as he’s whipped by the Commandant. The Scholars are also slaves and are, again, said to be raped often and abused by the Martial class and the “Masks” (the position that Elias is training for). The Commandant’s treatment of her slaves seemed a little extreme, over the top and was written, in detail, so often that it lost its importance. She, the Commandant, was so violent and abusive towards her slaves/servants and was constantly either branding them or disfiguring them sheerly for the pleasure and control it gave her over them. It got to be a bit too much, the slapping, the skin carving, the rough-handling, and got more annoying to be read than it did serve as a sympathetic piece for Laia and the other slaves.

Thirdly, the characters were absolutely awful. Every single one was more annoying than relatable. The villains were almost hyperbolic in nature and had no depth or backstory that described how or why they were so evil. Laia, Elias and Helene were very basic, 2D characters that had no growth or depth either, and became frustrating. 

The villains in the story were just awful. The Commandant was a bitch for no reason. Literally. She has no reason for being so awful to her servants, her son (Elias), to her students. To anyone. She just “is that way” (as many things in the story are) with no event, situation or life experience that contributed to it. And it makes her almost comical because she’s just...bad. Both figuratively and literally. Marcus is also similar in that same he’s “just that way” nature. He’s sexually and physically barbaric and constantly assaults and harasses the students and the slaves of the school just for fun. Or because he wants to feel that control and dominance over people he finds weaker than him. He’s also just annoying and more “needing therapy” than he is an impactful villain.

Oh, my god. So, firstly, Elias. He’s a typical beefcake soldier that thinks with his dick more than his brain. He does have his moments where he recognizes the oppression of the Scholars and how it’s wrong, even mentioning that he wants to change it and can and will once he’s emperor (if he’s emperor). The problem is that he doesn’t even want to be emperor; he wants to desert and leave because he hates the school and what the Masks do (he’s not wrong). He also constantly thinks of Laia and Helene with his dick. When he’s with Helene he constantly talks about how “beautiful” she looks in her armor (it fits her “so differently” than everyone else), and how he would “love to feel her hair between his fingers,” but then the next second they’re “too great of friends” to act on any of that. He almost kisses her, acting on those “urges,” but then essentially turns her down when he finds out she’s in love with him. He also has “lust at first sight” with Laia and constantly thinks of her sexually as well. There’s no contemplation of who she is as a person and only that she’s gorgeous. 

Laia is so whiny, naive and simplistic. She’s a weak heroine that stays that way the entire novel. She’s naive to the clear and obvious red flags when dealing with the Resistance and Mazen, but goes on to be a slave for the Commandant to “prove herself” (???) to the Resistance so that they will help her get her brother out of jail, even though the Commandant has either killed her last few slaves, or they have killed themselves. Seems legit. She also ignores the clear lies and manipulation from Mazen as none of his stories or “reports” line up and it’s clear he’s using her to take over the school. She whines constantly about the suffering she goes through, constantly reminding herself to do this “for Darin” after getting herself into the most reckless, stupid situations. She constantly needs saving and, honestly, Izzi is braver and stronger than Laia will ever be. I also never got why she beat herself up over “leaving” Darin when he told her to run. 

Helene is just annoying and is only there to serve as part of one of the love triangles. 

Lastly, the love triangles are so unnecessary. The romance itself is really out of place in the book, but having Laia be interested in both Keenan and Elias, and Elias interested in both Helene and Laia only serves to add unnecessary side-angst to the story that it doesn’t need. 

Laia and Keenan. It’s a “hate-to-love” scenario for Keenan in his feelings for Laia. It’s kind of a creepy insta love situation too because he starts to fall for her, but is so removed and emotionally distant that there doesn’t seem to be time for a real love to be able to bloom between them to even be a realistic “romance”. Laia is also just ignorant and “admires” Keenan, but also does the same for Elias. She’s had more time to get “close” to Keenan, but it’s still such a detached attraction it feels more awkward and forced than anything.

Helene and Elias. Oh, my god. Annoying, unnecessary, petty. Helene is in love with Elias, gets jealous when he helps the “slave-girl” and threatens to tell the Commandant that she snuck out, gets mad and doesn’t talk to Elias for a week because he was going to tell of Helene’s completely random ability of magic (seriously wtf was that and why was it only mentioned in passing?). It was all just a mess of angst that was so unnecessary. Elias only lusts after Helene because she’s there, she’s convenient and she’s beautiful. Not much else is there for him.

Laia and Elias. I don’t even understand how that romance even happened when their meetings were so awkward. It’s, again, only lust for Elias and Laia knows that he finds her attractive, but doesn’t do anything about it. She’s all whiny whenever he helps her and still can’t seem to get over that he’s a Mask and might *gasp* actually help her. She thinks Elias is going to screw her over more than the Resistance/Mazen will, when Elias shows her nothing but kindness and help. Really pointless romance.

Overall, the book was a 2/5 star read. I stopped caring about the outcomes of the characters and the overall world and its future. Again, it also had more potential than it did actual execution which is sad. I can see why other people liked it and enjoyed it, unfortunately I just wasn’t one of them. I was so disappointed because I was really looking forward to loving it as well. Let me know what you thought!

[commonplacebookgregory]

Reflection

“The danger of a single story” is a continuous theme I noticed throughout Women’s Writing Worldwide. At the beginning of this course, we were introduced to Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian author, who often writes from her worldview on feminism. And what is that worldview you might ask? Well, if I tried to explain it to you at the beginning of the semester, I would have failed her main point of not “believing in the single story”. This idea that Chimamanda is famous for talking about is stating that when hearing one single story about one woman’s experience, it indirectly adds to the discrimination against other women across the globe’s by ignoring their unique examples of privilege or oppression they have faced. I aim to show you how I learned the danger in agreeing with the single story throughout the literature we read throughout this course by telling you about my background on these ideas, how I interpreted some of the material from this class, and how I am applying it to my daily life.

I grew up in a very traditional viewing household on the ideas of women and how they should be. The woman is the one who does the cooking and cleaning, while the man of the house works to support the family. Growing up as the only daughter with two brothers, I was constantly around hearing jokes about women, about their role, and all the traditional stereotypes that exist. When I was younger, since I was around it so much, I honestly thought it was normal to act and think this way. I did not realize how little I knew about other women of different cultures, countries, and religions until I took this class. I had my assumptions and guesses, but never anything factual. After reading, watching, and annotating all the class material, I only realized how little I knew, but loved how much I was learning.

Coming back to Chimamanda Adichie’s TED talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” she addresses what her views are on the stereotypes of her home country, Nigeria. “I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family. My father was a professor. My mother was an administrator. And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come home nearby rural villages.”  The only things I feel like I know, or thought I knew, about Africa and the people that live there are that they are poor and don't have everything here that we do. But obviously from the video, I was very wrong. I feel as though we are taught that Africa is this weak, poor, distraught country that constantly needs help, when in fact many regions are the complete opposite. This is an example of me believing the single story. The danger of this is that is I am only adding more negative connotations to that stereotype and adding to the oppression of people from Nigeria, especially Adichie and other women who already face more stereotypes than men. After watching the TED talk, I felt compelled to learn more about Africa's truths, rather than what the media tells us. This made me think of all the stereotypes I have ever agreed with, joked about, and still hear daily. It has made me rethink all these situations and allowed me to understand that those stereotypes risk misunderstanding the full picture. In my additional posts, I point out lots of these stereotypes found in the literature I was introduced to this semester.  

           Before reading, “Introduction to Global Women’s Studies”, I knew very little about cultural, social, religious, and traditional expectations of women in different countries, but I did know that it is completely different than what I face as a woman in the United States. One interesting point the book made was about intersections in gender, the author stated, “Global women’s studies also examines intersections between gender and other variables such as race, class, and sexual orientation.” This proves that each woman has her own unique experience of how oppression and their intersecting identities combine to create a single story on that one woman gets to share. However, all other women have the same intersecting ideas to form their unique experience of being a woman, but they are oppressed at the same time for not being able to share their story, too.

           When reading, “Under the Western Eyes” by Chandra Mohanty, it gave the reality of western literature and the idea it portrayed of women. Before reading her article, I had never thought about or realized the truth behind her points. Western literature was written to portray any women besides white women as inadequate. Monanty states, "Western feminism is an exclusive and convoluted model which does not apply to women globally. It imposes the idea that white, affluent women are the norm of perfection and that all women should be envious of them and cannot achieve the same status without the same appearance and privilege.” Europe has predominantly been white and glorified white women as being the "ideal" look and even thought that the paler/whiter you are, the more attractive you are. Which that is quite offputting, along with the fact that any other woman that is not of this expectation should be jealous of the "perfect" western woman. She also explained how there are so many stereotypes and preconceived notions about third world women. “What I wish to analyze here specifically is the production of the “third world woman” as a singular monolithic subject in some recent (western) feminist texts”. The point that she made about the need to talk about the production of a "third world woman" is so important, especially as women from the United States (a first world country), because we categorize women from "poorer" countries to automatically have completely different problems than the women, like us, do. I felt like as a nation we still saw women from third world countries as poor, weak, little women that needed our saving because they have so little power and rights, when in all reality, I had no idea the things women had to deal with and struggle with for their own feminism. The average person does not know factual evidence or statements about what women from other countries experience, and yet it is so common to act like we do. This is another proof of stereotypes/ the single-story idea that plays a huge role in understanding intersectional feminism and the learning I have made throughout this course.  

           During the weeks of taking Women’s Writing Worldwide, I have learned what it means to be an intersectional feminist and why it is important to ignore the single-story narrative and stereotypes on women. By realizing the differences women face throughout the world, I am acknowledging that there is more than one story; there are billions upon billions in the whole wide world and no two stories are alike. Every woman faces her own oppressions and privilege. One woman who is able to share her unique story can do more harm than hurt; by pushing the women down who do not have the opportunity to tell their stories and rise out of environments featuring heavy stereotypes. I am proud to say that I support feminism stronger than I did before, and I am not ashamed to tell people that. This course gave me so much knowledge I did not have before, and I am eternally grateful. The material that stuck with me the most was learning about all the different women all over the world. I would have never been able to acquire so much knowledge about so many different cultures, countries, and religions from any other course or experience. It gave me a chance to understand and sympathize what women different than myself must endure, and it has been extremely interesting to find out. I have already found myself throughout my day, rethinking about a situation because I have learned that believing the single story can cause detrimental effects to others and even myself. If I revert to that thinking, I am not helping out other women who do not have the opportunity to share their voice. Whenever I hear someone making a derogatory remark on women, I am no longer afraid to speak my mind and speak on what I believe in. I am working on becoming more confident in my identity as a woman in my society today and I hope that allows me to become more comfortable with the issues my family have with advancing their old ways of thinking. I would love to be the one to explain to them the detrimental effects their views have on me, their own daughter, and I am sure other women they have made comments to as well. It has been a pleasure to learn about women all over the world, and how every woman has their own unique story to tell. No woman is a part of a stereotype; and I hope the rest of the world begins to see that as well.

[violenceinintersectionality]

Throughout this semester, a topic that stood out to me was intersectionality. This especially caught my attention when we read Chinelo Okparanta’s novel, “Under the Udala trees”. With this in mind, I will be discussing violence in intersectionality, discrimination, and my personal experience with witnessing violence in intersectionality.

Intersectionality is defined by Merriam-Webster as, “The complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups”. In other words, the effect that discrimination has on certain groups that are especially discriminated against. As a white female, I find myself being discriminated against often. Whether it be because of my looks, age, race, and even financial status. As women, I feel that this is something we all have to deal with at least once in our life. What frustrates me, personally, is that in my opinion, sex and race are two of the most prominent factors in intersectionality and I believe that women of color are the most affected by violence in intersectionality. I read an article during this class that explained how race is a social construct. Reading this article really made me wonder why women of color are treated so differently, especially when I was reading these wonderful works that the women had written. The author of the article, Angela Onwuachi-Willig wrote, “Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in South Africa”. Therefore, in my eyes I see a world that has created a prejudice to certain people because it’s just what they felt they had to do. On top of that, women are also seen as a minority to some. In the Neolithic era, all women were caretakers of the children who also farmed and protected their home while their husbands were out hunting. Women are the reason that we’re all prospering and obviously alive. So I cant help but wonder when this idea that they are somehow less of a person than men came about. Between the idea that women of color are somehow different in their humanity and that women are less important than man, it’s easy to see how ignorant people can be so careless when it comes to equality.

When I wrote my paper analyzing “Under the Udala Trees” I found myself unable to stop my brain from getting my hands to stop typing. The story truly spoke to me in a way that lifted me up but also broke my heart. In the story, the main character must deal with homophobia, religious differences, domestic abuse, and more. This class has truly opened my eyes when I thought they were already open, learning stories about these strong, amazing women who have been to hell and back make’s issues in today’s society all more real. Specifically, the main character, Ijeoma, was forced to suppress her sexuality and when it was discovered that she was in love with a member of the same sex, religion was forced upon her, her friends were killed, and the man who became her husband inflicted physical, mental, and emotional violence in her. While this story may be some words in a book to some people, things like this are happening in real life every day. If I could convince every human on the planet to at least take this class and educate themselves on what women who have dealt with these things in history have been through, I would and there is no doubt in my mind that it would make a huge change in this world. This is where violence in intersectionality comes in. If you take these ideas about women of color being unequal and factor in people who feel they are better than these women, you get the notion that those people feel they can push the women around. When Ijeoma’s husband threatened her with violence, he must have truly thought in that moment that he was so much better than her because of his “status” as a human. When people with violent tendencies get into this mindset, there is absolutely no limit to what they can do. The Institute For Women’s Policy Research stated, “More than four in ten Black women experience physical violence from an intimate partner during their lifetimes. White women, Latinas, and Asian/Pacific Islander women report lower rates. Black women also experience significantly higher rates of psychological abuse—including humiliation, insults, name-calling, and coercive control—than do women overall. Sexual violence affects Black women at high rates. More than 20 percent of Black women are raped during their lifetimes—a higher share than among women overall. Black women face a particularly high risk of being killed at the hands of a man. A 2015 Violence Policy Center study finds that Black women were two and a half times more likely to be murdered by men than their White counterparts. More than nine in ten Black female victims knew their killers”. I made sure to include all of these statistics in length because they need to be acknowledged. Almost everything we’ve read from female authors this semester includes a portion where they mentioned the trials and tribulations they went through to get to the place where they are, regardless of race but still so unbelievably appalling. I can only pray that these statistics are better recognized and improved.

I live in a rural, conservative, small town area filled with closed minded people. I often take a lot of heat for attending High Point, with people calling it a “rich kid liberal school” among other things. However, I couldn’t be happier to announce that I go to High Point because I have the ability to learn from and among some of the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. It’s a different story where I live though. Racism is so prominent and absolutely horrifying. A few years ago, I was dating a guy who most would consider “redneck”. On top of that, I was also in his friend group. We would go for bonfires, mudding, truck shows, the classic country boy stuff. During all of this however, any time we would pass a person of color, the men in that group would quietly refer to them with a derogatory, horrifying name that shocked me every time. At first, I kept quiet and didn’t say anything, which was obviously the wrong thing to do and a big factor in this societal issue. After some time though, I began to speak up and explain why those words were wrong and hurtful, to which they often responded with “When did you become a snowflake libtard?” I hear this question in my head on a daily basis. The group refused to acknowledge people of color and eventually I became aware of an incident where a few boys were cut off by a black woman on the road and followed her home, waited until she was inside, and smashed the woman’s car windows, doors, and ripped up the seats. The boys were laughing when they told me this story and that instance changed my life forever. I broke up with my boyfriend, left the friend group, and called the police immediately and two of the men in that incident served 6 months in jail which personally I think is not enough. To this day I still receive hate messages about it, and I can’t imagine it’s helped their moral values at all. I tell this story because it’s one instance that I’ve witnessed as a white woman, someone who doesn’t experience severe discrimination everyday in much worse ways and it still changed my life. When listening to Chimamanda Ngozi Ndichi’s Ted Talk, she mentioned that many of her peers were shocked by her experiences. They had formulated these ideas in their heads about what her home, Nigeria, was actually like based on things they had seen through the media. The boys I dealt with all those years ago would have looked at her the exact same and most likely in a more negative manner. What she dealt with was an instance of intersectionality being played out and hopefully her peers were able to learn from her as a human not to expect less of someone because of where they come from.

In conclusion, this class has truly opened my eyes to so many issues present in our world. I fully believe that along with me, many others who have taken this class have an entirely different view on women of all genders, races, shapes and sizes. The author’s we’ve learned from this semester have definitely had people question, if not change their actions after hearing their stories, inspiring all of us to make this world a better place.

[tusouthafrica]

Female Student Activism: Speaking Out Despite Facing Gender Discrimination

Article, Photos and Audio by: Emma Padner

A Seasoned Activist

At just 12 years old, Brenda Leonard attended her first political meeting. By age 15, she became the president of the Student Representative Council at her high school in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town. 

Leonard was an active student protestor in 1985 when South Africa was ruled by the Apartheid Government. Leonard, who currently works at Bush Community Radio in Woodstock, Cape Town, was working to fight and ultimately overturn this government.

But she and the other women participants had to battle for equality within the majority male protest organizations. Leonard recalled a time when the women protested in order to gain the respect of their male counterparts.

“[The men] thought we were distracting away from the real issues and we were called anti-revolutionaries and lots of other things,” she added. “But for us it was important that our voices are heard because we make a contribution, a very important contribution towards liberating the country.”

“Our liberation is not different to your liberation and because of that our issues need to be recognized within this.”

-Leonard, on how women during the Apartheid Era needed to ‘prove’ that gender liberation should be valued in society

Hear From Leonard

A Rich Past of Student Activism

Student protests have played a pivotal role in South Africa’s history. In 1974, the Apartheid Government made it compulsory that the Afrikkans language be taught in all South African schools.  

On June 16, 1976, students in Soweto, Johannesburg marched in protest of this significant curricular change. What began as a peaceful protest turned violent when police arrived, resulting in an original report of twenty three deaths. Estimates rose to 176 casualties. 

Leonard added that in the 1980s when she was actively protesting, students were more violent; burning tires, disrupting schools, and making petrol bombs. 

In 2015, students began protesting the rising fees for higher education. This sparked the #FeesMustFall movement. Meanwhile, the Western Cape province held protests for the removal of colonialist Cecil John Rhodes statue, which was at the University of Cape Town (UCT)’s main campus. There were also protests to prevent the outsourcing of university workers. 

Media organization Daily Vox reported that the movement did not get immediate attention because it originated at historically black, rural universities like The University of Limpopo. Once protests spread to historically white universities such as Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and UCT, it grew into a national movement. 

Unfortunately, the historically black universities continued to be ignored by most major media outlets throughout the movement. 

#FeesMustFall from a Journalist’s Viewpoint

Asisha Dadi Patel was attending Johannesburg’s Wits and covered the #FeesMustFall protests firsthand for Daily Vox in 2015 and 2016.

During her honors (postgraduate year), she worked to uncover the truth about #FeesMustFall. Patel said she represented the protests from the students’ point of view. 

“As a journalist, covering [#FeesMustFall] was amazing for me because it was literally stuff that had never happened before...and here I was being able to be a part of documenting it,” she said.

Despite appreciating the opportunity to cover the protests, Patel recalled multiple times where she was harassed while doing her job because of her gender. She said it was common to see that sort of practice within the movement.

“A lot of issues of sexism came to the foreground, a lot of issues of patriarchy; people, including women themselves, were not willing to take women leaders seriously,” she added. “I know there were multiple accounts of sexual assault and those sorts of thing by the security with female students. They were just brutalized, they were just manhandled really badly. One girl had her shirt ripped open and her breasts were hanging out just because of police brutality.” 

Patel said when class registration was shut down in 2016, a group of students gathered to occupy the concourse on campus. She took a photo for her article. 

“[The group] got extremely angry and within a matter of 30 seconds there was a massive mob surrounding me,” she said. “They were trying to grab my phone and trying to force me to delete the picture and it turned into a very big thing. They were getting physical.” 

The violent situation caused her to feel exhausted by the movement and traumatized. She added that violence increased in 2016, due to the police presence on campus.

“A whole group of women banded together to protest that exact issue and say, ‘If this movement isn’t going to be inclusive of women and elevate the voices of the women who are elected as our leaders rightfully, then we don’t want to be part of it.’”

-Patel, on the unequal treatment of the rightfully elected female leaders of the Wits Student Representative Council in 2015 

Hear From Patel

2016 Protests at Wits University

For journalism honors student Tumell Modiba, #FeesMustFall was new to her when she started at Wits in 2016. Modiba was born in South Africa but grew up in the United Arab Emirates.

“I was kind of culture shocked in a way because I’ve seen protests happen on TV but not really happening at school,” she said. “I remember attending class this one time and students came in and disrupted and said that it’s very unfair that students are continuing to study whilst we are fighting for free education.”

Modiba was in a difficult situation during the protests, she added, as she did not participate because her parents asked her not to. They were visiting while campus was shut down because of protests and had her travel to Cape Town with them so she would not be involved or put in danger.

“I would tell my parents every day what's happening, how there were police vans on campus, how some people were being tear gassed, shot at with tear gas by the police, and my parents were very scared of that.”

-Modiba, on why her parents would not allow her to participate in the #FeesMustFall protests

Hear From Modiba

Modiba said women seemed to fall victim to violence by police forces more than their male counterparts, despite not actively participating in the protests on campus. 

“The policemen themselves were very intimidating. They would even catcall us, try to flirt with us and it was very unsafe because you wouldn't know if you denied any of their advances, what they would do to you,” Modiba said. “They could easily arrest you.” 

She added she heard there were many women who were assaulted on campus by private securities. 

Jabulile Mbatha, a journalism honors student at Wits, said she needed to participate in the protests because she and her friends were directly affected by the fees.

As a commuter, Mbatha had to go out of her way to travel to campus each day to protest. She said doing this she put herself in danger as she did not have an immediate safe space to run to, like a dormitory. 

She said she spoke with her parents about participating in the protests. Mbatha added her family had always been open and encouraging, and her parents simply warned her to avoid violence and “try and remain as you are.”

Mbatha added the protests were unlike anything she had experienced in the past, as the university was highly militarized and it was her first encounter with police at such close contact.

“For [police officers] to also be fighting back as much as they did was just unbearable because you saw the things they did to other students or the people you were protesting with, and it’s hard for you to not want to fight for your own life,” she added.

Though Mbatha did not experience additional struggle due to her gender, she noticed her male counterparts seemed to lead more discussions and have more decision-making power.

“There’s a hierarchical structure where gender takes an important role and the male student activists seem to shine or seem to want to lead the protest or give direction,” she said. “...which is very frustrating because we’re all facing the same struggle.”

“Some of my friends that stayed back home thought that it was very unnecessary putting my life in danger...by coming all the way here, knowing that [I] wouldn't have an immediate safe space to run to if ever it just got really bad.”

-Mbatha, on commuting to campus in order to participate in protests

Protests in the Western Cape

At UCT, students were not only protesting high fees, but also the presence of a Cecil John Rhodes statue on campus. The #RhodesMustFall movement sparked a call to ‘decolonize’ education across South Africa. 

UCT masters student Alexandria Hotz, studying philosophy and human rights law, said though there were students who seemed to step up more than others, the UCT protesters did their best to eliminate hierarchy within the protest space. 

She said history tends to seek out someone to illuminate as a leader even if there is not one, creating divisions within the space. 

“It [is] important that some women and queer, nonbinary people were emphasized as leaders and it gave confidence to young women, young queer people, young non binary people,” Hotz said. “But it also had an impact on who was valued, who was seen, who was not and that's really one of the biggest things that I think was really unfortunate.” 

Hotz’s involvement in politics began when she was young, as her parents were politically active and took her to marches and protests. She added that sometimes she wanted to live a “carefree, blasé, apathetic life,” but politics always called to her.

“You begin to realize that your body is racialized and your body is gendered and that shapes the experiences that you have in the world and on campus,” she said. “It makes it also very difficult to ignore or remain silent or not want to be part of what was happening and unfolding at the university.” 

“We’re not going to sit quietly and take this type of oppression and violence. We are going to speak about what's happening in our political spaces, and if we are wanting to see a different world than that different world needs to start within the organizing spaces that we’re in.”

-Hotz, on the reaction of how women, queer, and nonbianry people were treated in protests

Hear From Hotz

Pushing Past Gender Barriers

Wits journalism and media studies student Imaan Moosa also identifies as a student activist. However, she was not at Wits during the #FeesMustFall protests. She is active with the Palestine Solidarity Community. She serves as the group’s secretary. 

Moosa said in her experience, it is more difficult and unsafe for women in protests. She added she has personally been manhandled by police while protesting. 

“When you’re in an environment like that and then you’re being targeted by police and they are trying to harm you, it makes you very angry,” she said.  

Moosa said she believes there is a ‘stigma’ around women in leadership positions, and that women have to “work 10 times harder than a man whose in this position because [men] don't see [females] as valuable as men.”

Moosa found herself and other women having to prove themselves not just to the men in the activism community, but to men in general who want to get involved. 

“There’s that added challenge of being a woman in activist circles where you’re not just being targeted by police or people in power but you have to explain your existence in that space,” Moosa added.

“[Men] don’t see [women] as valuable as men and you have to prove yourself not just to the men in the activism community but just to men in general who want to get involved because they don’t see you as worthy of that [leadership] position.” 

-Moosa, on how women leaders are portrayed in politics and protests

Hear From Moosa

Looking to the Future 

Activist Brenda Leonard said she was proud when the #FeesMustFall protests broke out because of the large number of young women who were unafraid to step up and be active in the protests.

“I smile because it made me feel, ‘Yes we’ve done something right!’” she said. “We fought for years, [and] here’s what we fought for, because they stood up there, they were young, they were articulate, confident and they could fight for the issues.”

Moosa emphasized the importance that students, especially women, continue to vocalize what they believe in and fight for those beliefs, because young people always seem to push for change worldwide.

She added that the struggle and danger for young women is a universal idea, and that because of the universality, they will continue to stand up for other women across the country and globe.  

“As South Africans, we have a duty to help others...any small change matters,” Moosa said. “We are the future of our generation and we are going to be the ones who are sitting in Parliament, who are making laws and changing policy and we do have a voice and we should be able to use our voice to make a difference.”

Hear From Leonard about the Future 

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

The lesbian pioneers who fooled Spain's Catholic Church

Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/the-lesbian-pioneers-who-fooled-spains-catholic-church/

The lesbian pioneers who fooled Spain's Catholic Church

Image copyright José Sellier

Image caption Marcela Gracia Ibeas and Elisa Sánchez Loriga pictured at their wedding

There was something unusual about the fresh-faced groom that day.

The priest at the San Jorge church in A Coruña, north-western Spain, didn’t see anything special, and the smattering of relatives in attendance weren’t saying anything.

But both ‘Mario’ and his bride, Marcela, were women.

It was 1901, and the union between Elisa and Marcela remains the only known same-sex marriage in the history of the Spanish Catholic Church.

But the couple’s sweet victory over the conservative culture of early 20th Century Spain would be short-lived.

They were to spend the rest of their lives on the run from persecution across two continents.

Now Elisa and Marcela’s story is to be made into a film by Isabel Coixet, whose latest movie The Bookshop, with Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy, is soon to be released in the UK.

“When I think about these two women and the courage it took for one of them to pretend to be a man, it was unbelievably brave,” Coixet, who also wrote the script, told the BBC.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Spanish writer-director Isabel Coixet is making a film about the ground-breaking couple

“I was fascinated the first time I heard about the story, which almost raised more questions than it has answers.

“We don’t know what happened to them in the end, and how did they think they would get away with it?”

Elaborate plot

Elisa Sánchez Loriga and Marcela Gracia Ibeas first met while training to be school teachers in A Coruña, and they fell in love.

Because of family concerns about the relationship, Marcela was packed off to Madrid for a spell by her mother.

But, according to the historian Narciso de Gabriel, who wrote a book about the couple, the pair were eventually posted to village schools just a few miles apart in rural Galicia – close enough for Elisa to walk to Marcela’s house every evening after classes.

Image copyright Gety

Image caption The couple met in the Spanish port city of A Coruña

At some point during this period, the couple hatched their elaborate wedding plot.

First, they let it be known that they had quarrelled. And Marcela, who, according to Mr De Gabriel, was pregnant with an unidentified man’s child, announced that she was to marry Elisa’s cousin.

Enter ‘Mario’, who purported to be a young man with family ties to A Coruña, but who had been brought up in London in a family of atheists.

Posing in short hair and a morning suit as Mario, Elisa was duly baptised and married to Marcela on the same day.

Mr De Gabriel told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo in 2011 that the “wedding still stands as legal” in A Coruña’s civil register.

Exile

Sadly for the happy couple, though, their wedding portrait was to make its way to the front page of the local newspaper, La Voz de Galicia.

It exposed their ruse under the headline “A wedding without a groom”.

Their unwanted public notoriety made it impossible for Elisa and Marcela to make a living in Galicia, so they fled to Porto in Portugal, where Marcela gave birth to a daughter.

Threatened by an extradition order to face trial in Spain and briefly jailed, the couple managed to board a ship across the Atlantic, settling in Buenos Aires in 1902.

Image caption Marcela and Elisa after being arrested

Elisa appears to have married a wealthy old Dane, but he ended up denouncing her intentions as fraudulent.

After that, the trail of the couple went cold for Mr De Gabriel, except for Mexican newspaper reports from 1909 saying that Elisa had committed suicide in Veracruz.

‘Invisible’

While civil weddings between gay and lesbian couples have been legal in Spain for over a decade, LGBT campaigners in the country still say there are some echoes of the present day in the Elisa and Marcela’s struggle.

Inmaculada Mujika Flores, a sociologist, psychologist and director of the Bilbao-based LGBT association Aldarte, welcomes the film project as a rare opportunity to make lesbian relationships more visible.

“If this story had been about two gay men, I’m sure it would be better known,” she says.

“We lesbians have virtually no role models in Spain among politicians, actresses or artists.

“Even when there was repression under Franco, it was gay men who suffered, while we have always been invisible. Only when we started to protest in the 1980s, did lesbians begin to exist in Spain.”

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Veronica and Tiana were the first women in Spain to have a civil wedding in 2005

Ms Mujika Flores says that the legal equality the gay community enjoys in Spain is extremely important to prevent the “pain of being a non-person” – as was surely experienced by Elisa and Marcela.

“But a law doesn’t automatically flick a society’s switch.

“There are still people who keep their sexuality secret, and others who marry, for example, but feel they cannot take the statutory leave from work due to embarrassment or a fear of being fired.”

Coixet agrees that her subject matter is unusual, although she says her intentions are not political.

“It’s true that there are very few stories about women in love. But this is not a manifesto.

“For me it’s natural to write stories about women; then producers keep asking why.

“They never ask a male director why they want to make a film about Dunkirk. But I was asked, ‘Why do you want to make a film about two women who got married in Galicia in 1901?’

“Come on, that’s heroic, man!”

[lifewithafiveyearold]

#metoo

In the wake of the recent allegations of sexual assault and harassment in the Hollywood community I am reminded that it isn’t just public figures that have these horrible experiences, it can be anyone of any gender. While I have never experienced something as intense as an assault or rape, I can remember times when I was genuinely harassed where the culprits were just written off for “just acting like a guy” or “totally shitfaced” as if that made it acceptable in any way. The more I thought about it the more memories reminded me of times when I was either too naive or worried about losing my job to stand up for myself and I wish so much to be able to go back and be confident enough to kick those guys in the nuts.

For many years during my 20s I worked in an industry that was heavily male dominated and notoriously difficult for a woman to be taken seriously and/or treated the same way as her male counterparts. There were many times when completely inappropriate things would get said about me or directly to me by both co-workers and patrons and I would have to laugh them off lest I brand myself as difficult. Some of these people were guys my father went to school with and yet comments about my body or my clothing weren’t out of bounds for these creeps. I had the pleasure of working alongside my brother, (who is the exception to the rule with regards to this subject matter) for three summers and yet when he wasn’t around I was fair game for jeers and hilarious pokes at my expense. Oftentimes it would be co-workers, people with a degree of seniority who would be the instigators. I clearly remember one time I was wearing a skirt at work. I was answering a telephone call and the phone I was using had a super long, swirly cord on it. As I spoke into the phone I was standing a fair distance from the base of the phone and my then boss decided it was perfectly okay to use the phone cord to slowly lift the bottom hem of my skirt and expose my underpants to another co-worker standing next to him. Nothing about that situation is acceptable behaviour. None of it. And yet at 21 I was too uninformed to do anything about it; too nervous to stir the pot. The paycheques I took home from that job were keeping me alive, I couldn’t put that in jeopardy so I kept quiet. I shudder to think about all the young women who have since worked in that environment who also might have been too scared to come forward and put their employment at risk.

Against my better judgement I decided at 23 that I would enroll in a program at the local community college that would further develop my skills to continue working within said industry. I don’t want to name names but I will say that it was the Golf Program at McEwan. Getting into the program was tough and competitive at the time, you had to have X amount of employment experience, X amount of playing experience and go through an intense interview process. Not to mention you had to have some sort of educational credentials, they weren’t just admitting total dummies into the program!! Or were they?!  I was accepted into the program and started classes in October of that year. My first year class had 35 students in it, 31 guys and 4 girls. I remember friends of mine joking about how awesome that ratio was, I could have my pick of the litter (so to speak). At the time I was ‘dating’ a guy from the industry and in the second year of the program who promptly broke up with me about a week into school citing the whole “I don’t really want to be in a relationship” BS and “you’re a non-smoker, I can’t see this working out” excuse. Wait, what? Let’s just say I dodged a bullet there. I was always taking rejection badly back then so needless to say when I started school I wasn’t really looking to cozy up with any of my classmates.

Most of my fellow students were great people, I made lifelong friends while I was there. I bonded immediately with a few of the girls who were in the second year of the program. Even the one that my ex called “the Town Bike” (as in, everyone has had a ride) whose nickname behind her back couldn’t have been further from the truth.  You see, when a girl gets involved with a guy and things go south really horrible things can be said about her. The guy in the situation is never to blame, no he’s a big stud, a playa and high fives all around for nailing that one! Meanwhile the girl is often left with a reputation she doesn’t deserve just because she was physical with someone who, in the end couldn’t be bothered to maintain a relationship and instead bragged to his buddies about how “hot to trot” she was. (Someone I barely knew had told a guy was I was pursuing during the second semester that I was “hot to trot”. That time I did hunt him down and tore him a new one and he sheepishly apologized.)

I have to say the majority of the friends I made and hung out with at school were top shelf people. Most had girlfriends back in small rural towns, others just had the common decency to treat me like an equal instead of a potential shag. I can honestly say that for the most part, when I was with them I was more like a sister and I’m pretty sure any of them would have come to my defense if need be. There’s always a bad apple in the bunch however. One night a bunch of us went bowling at a local mall. It was a casual thing, a couple of the girls and I and some of the guys from school. I remember this one guy being really lewd and just gross in general and I made a mental note to steer clear and not get cornered by him and any point of the night. (It should be noted that I was a non-drinker during this time frame and never had the convenience of using the excuse “oh, man I was so wasted!” after any of my interactions with others.)  At one point, I got up to bowl and as I was standing to line up my shot there was pressure on my back and I felt my bra pop open. I wheeled around and it was the aforementioned Mr. Lewd and he was having a great time! He thought that was the most clever and most likely romantic thing to do to a lady. I stormed off to the washroom to fix my bra and to hyperventilate in the stall for a few minutes. I spent the rest of the bowling sitting on a bench with my friend and I don’t recall if I ever told anyone about it at the time. Later that night, because I was the only one in the class who lived local and had their own place, we eventually made it back to my house. It was not uncommon for someone to pass out on the hide-a-bed in my living room or just on the floor. I preferred that option to allowing anyone to drunk drive themselves home. That night, obviously against my better judgement and without my permission Mr. Lewd had followed us back to my house. I believe one of the other guys was his ride home. It got late, most of the people grabbed cabs and made their way home but one of my girlfriends and Mr. Lewd and Mr. Lewd’s ride stayed on. I gave the guys instructions on how to set up the hide-a-bed and went to pour my very drunk girlfriend into my bed. As I was walking away, Mr. Lewd again grabbed me by the back and tried to undo my bra. Lucky for me his friend was standing right there and swatted his hand away from me and I headed down the hall to my roommate’s room where I crawled into bed with her and bawled. I know if I had I told any of my guy friends what had happened they would have kicked the ever-loving crap out of him, but I didn’t. Again not wanting to stir the pot.

I struggled to maintain any form of a ‘relationship’ with anyone I tried to that first year of school and the summer after. Some people would be interested in me based solely on the false reputation others in the industry had developed for me; some were just fucking gross pigs who would break up with me because they “missed their girlfriend” who was currently living in another province unbeknownst to me. Developing trust in an environment like that is truly difficult. I remember the fall of the second year, one of the dummies I had remained friendly with, the one with the girlfriend in Saskatchewan called me to go golfing with him and a couple other guys from the third year. I went, we played, grabbed something to eat after and I drove him back to his new apartment which he invited me in to see. Now I know anyone reading this is probably like “what did you expect? Agreeing to go into his place!” What did I expect?! Common fucking decency from someone who I considered to be a friend that’s what. Anyway, long story short this dingus ‘put the moves on me’ and I remember saying something like “I don’t want to do this unless it’s going to lead somewhere, I’m not going to be a fuck buddy”. And he was like “Oh, I’m not looking for anything right now, I still have a girlfriend.” What the actual fuck. I got really mad, called him a bunch of names and left, post-haste. The following week at orientation for school, in front of all three years of students, he had one of the first years stand up and say “Don’t date any of the Program chicks” as his piece of advice for how to survive the Program. The whole room went “oooooh” and most of them looked at me but I didn’t really notice because I was too busy shooting flaming daggers out of my eyeballs at him from across the room. I remember my friend Mark grabbing my hand under the table probably to stop me from hurling something at him. He thought he was a big hero but afterwards all of my guy friends cornered him and straightened him out. That brought him down a few pegs but still left me feeling like the whole of the student body now thought I was some sort of whore. No one ever give a woman a high-five for her sexual conquests that’s for sure. The funny thing is, that same idiot contacted me about ten years ago and we went for a drink. He lives in some shit hole town up north and was down for business of some sort. The place we met was attached to the hotel he was staying and we had to walk past his room for me to get back to my car. Outside his room he said he really wanted me to come in and spend the night. I was like “naw, how about we meet for breakfast somewhere in the morning” and he agreed. The next day came and went, and after about a week I contacted him because I was genuinely concerned about what had happened to him. I had no interest in him at all, he having become an overweight bald guy but I still cared about a friend’s safety. When he answered the phone it was in a hushed whisper and when I asked why he was whispering he said he didn’t want to wake up his fiancée, now wife. I could ruin a marriage with this story, just sayin’.

There have been a couple of times since then when I’ve encountered inappropriate behaviour from guys I’ve had no interest in beyond being work colleagues or even friends. One co-worker invited me over to watch Raiders of the Lost Arc and I went, thinking there was no hidden agenda because I had made it abundantly clear at the time I wanted no part of any interaction with a man having just ended a three year relationship. This creep made a proposal that we become “friends with benefits” to which I replied “hell no”. The most awkward part was him having to drive me home in complete stony silence. Oh and having to work together for the next six months. A man’s libido really can wreck things.

I don’t know where I am going with this except to say that as I have gotten older, gained more confidence and self-respect, situations like this have become virtually non-existent for me. It could be because now I am a mom and probably put out some sort of ‘mom vibe’ with my sensible running shoes and prescription sunglasses. It’s unfortunate that we have to go through these things as we mature; some sort of sick rite of passage for us in order to gain the knowledge and courage to avoid potentially dangerous situations or to know how to fight back. To yell and scream and draw attention. I don’t put myself in the same category as someone who has experienced terrible abuse or assault. I can’t pretend to know what that would feel like afterwards and for the rest of your life. I know what it’s like to be treated like an object on the smallest scale in the grand scheme of things. I do know that as more people come forward and say “hey, that happened to me too” a greater awareness can be created for something that often lingers in silence. No one should feel ashamed when these things happen. You are not to blame.

[fezzigbell]

#metoo

In the wake of the recent allegations of sexual assault and harassment in the Hollywood community I am reminded that it isn’t just public figures that have these horrible experiences, it can be anyone of any gender. While I have never experienced something as intense as an assault or rape, I can remember times when I was genuinely harassed where the culprits were just written off for “just acting like a guy” or “totally shitfaced” as if that made it acceptable in any way. The more I thought about it the more memories reminded me of times when I was either too naive or worried about losing my job to stand up for myself and I wish so much to be able to go back and be confident enough to kick those guys in the nuts.

For many years during my 20s I worked in an industry that was heavily male dominated and notoriously difficult for a woman to be taken seriously and/or treated the same way as her male counterparts. There were many times when completely inappropriate things would get said about me or directly to me by both co-workers and patrons and I would have to laugh them off lest I brand myself as difficult. Some of these people were guys my father went to school with and yet comments about my body or my clothing weren’t out of bounds for these creeps. I had the pleasure of working alongside my brother, (who is the exception to the rule with regards to this subject matter) for three summers and yet when he wasn’t around I was fair game for jeers and hilarious pokes at my expense. Oftentimes it would be co-workers, people with a degree of seniority who would be the instigators. I clearly remember one time I was wearing a skirt at work. I was answering a telephone call and the phone I was using had a super long, swirly cord on it. As I spoke into the phone I was standing a fair distance from the base of the phone and my then boss decided it was perfectly okay to use the phone cord to slowly lift the bottom hem of my skirt and expose my underpants to another co-worker standing next to him. Nothing about that situation is acceptable behaviour. None of it. And yet at 21 I was too uninformed to do anything about it; too nervous to stir the pot. The paycheques I took home from that job were keeping me alive, I couldn’t put that in jeopardy so I kept quiet. I shudder to think about all the young women who have since worked in that environment who also might have been too scared to come forward and put their employment at risk.

Against my better judgement I decided at 23 that I would enroll in a program at the local community college that would further develop my skills to continue working within said industry. I don’t want to name names but I will say that it was the Golf Program at McEwan. Getting into the program was tough and competitive at the time, you had to have X amount of employment experience, X amount of playing experience and go through an intense interview process. Not to mention you had to have some sort of educational credentials, they weren’t just admitting total dummies into the program!! Or were they?!  I was accepted into the program and started classes in October of that year. My first year class had 35 students in it, 31 guys and 4 girls. I remember friends of mine joking about how awesome that ratio was, I could have my pick of the litter (so to speak). At the time I was ‘dating’ a guy from the industry and in the second year of the program who promptly broke up with me about a week into school citing the whole “I don’t really want to be in a relationship” BS and “you’re a non-smoker, I can’t see this working out” excuse. Wait, what? Let’s just say I dodged a bullet there. I was always taking rejection badly back then so needless to say when I started school I wasn’t really looking to cozy up with any of my classmates.

Most of my fellow students were great people, I made lifelong friends while I was there. I bonded immediately with a few of the girls who were in the second year of the program. Even the one that my ex called “the Town Bike” (as in, everyone has had a ride) whose nickname behind her back couldn’t have been further from the truth.  You see, when a girl gets involved with a guy and things go south really horrible things can be said about her. The guy in the situation is never to blame, no he’s a big stud, a playa and high fives all around for nailing that one! Meanwhile the girl is often left with a reputation she doesn’t deserve just because she was physical with someone who, in the end couldn’t be bothered to maintain a relationship and instead bragged to his buddies about how “hot to trot” she was. (Someone I barely knew had told a guy was I was pursuing during the second semester that I was “hot to trot”. That time I did hunt him down and tore him a new one and he sheepishly apologized.)

I have to say the majority of the friends I made and hung out with at school were top shelf people. Most had girlfriends back in small rural towns, others just had the common decency to treat me like an equal instead of a potential shag. I can honestly say that for the most part, when I was with them I was more like a sister and I’m pretty sure any of them would have come to my defense if need be. There’s always a bad apple in the bunch however. One night a bunch of us went bowling at a local mall. It was a casual thing, a couple of the girls and I and some of the guys from school. I remember this one guy being really lewd and just gross in general and I made a mental note to steer clear and not get corned by him and any point of the night. (It should be noted that I was a non-drinker during this time frame and never had the convenience of using the excuse “oh, man I was so wasted!” after any of my interactions with others.)  At one point, I got up to bowl and as I was standing to line up my shot there was pressure on my back and I felt my bra pop open. I wheeled around and it was the aforementioned Mr. Lewd and he was having a great time! He thought that was the most clever and most likely romantic thing to do to a lady. I stormed off to the washroom to fix my bra and to hyperventilate in the stall for a few minutes. I spent the rest of the bowling sitting on a bench with my friend and I don’t recall if I ever told anyone about it at the time. Later that night, because I was the only one in the class who lived local and had their own place, we eventually made it back to my house. It was not uncommon for someone to pass out on the hide-a-bed in my living room or just on the floor. I preferred that option to allowing anyone to drunk drive themselves home. That night, obviously against my better judgement and without my permission Mr. Lewd had followed us back to my house. I believe one of the other guys was his ride home. It got late, most of the people grabbed cabs and made their way home but one of my girlfriends and Mr. Lewd and Mr. Lewd’s ride stayed on. I gave the guys instructions on how to set up the hide-a-bed and went to pour my very drunk girlfriend into my bed. As I was walking away, Mr. Lewd again grabbed me by the back and tried to undo my bra. Lucky for me his friend was standing right there and swatted his hand away from me and I headed down the hall to my roommate’s room where I crawled into bed with her and bawled. I know if I had I told any of my guy friends what had happened they would have kicked the ever-loving crap out of him, but I didn’t. Again not wanting to stir the pot.

I struggled to maintain any form of a ‘relationship’ with anyone I tried to that first year of school and the summer after. Some people would be interested in me based solely on the false reputation others in the industry had developed for me; some were just fucking gross pigs who would break up with me because they “missed their girlfriend” who was currently living in another province unbeknownst to me. Developing trust in an environment like that is truly difficult. I remember the fall of the second year, one of the dummies I had remained friendly with, the one with the girlfriend in Saskatchewan called me to go golfing with him and a couple other guys from the third year. I went, we played, grabbed something to eat after and I drove him back to his new apartment which he invited me in to see. Now I know anyone reading this is probably like “what did you expect? Agreeing to go into his place!” What did I expect?! Common fucking decency from someone who I considered to be a friend that’s what. Anyway, long story short this dingus ‘put the moves on me’ and I remember saying something like “I don’t want to do this unless it’s going to lead somewhere, I’m not going to be a fuck buddy”. And he was like “Oh, I’m not looking for anything right now, I still have a girlfriend.” What the actual fuck. I got really mad, called him a bunch of names and left, post-haste. The following week at orientation for school, in front of all three years of students, he had one of the first years stand up and say “Don’t date any of the Program chicks” as his piece of advice for how to survive the Program. The whole room went “oooooh” and most of them looked at me but I didn’t really notice because I was too busy shooting flaming daggers out of my eyeballs at him from across the room. I remember my friend Mark grabbing my hand under the table probably to stop me from hurling something at him. He thought he was a big hero but afterwards all of my guy friends cornered him and straightened him out. That brought him down a few pegs but still left me feeling like the whole of the student body now thought I was some sort of whore. No one ever give a woman a high-five for her sexual conquests that’s for sure. The funny thing is, that same idiot contacted me about ten years ago and we went for a drink. He lives in some shit hole town up north and was down for business of some sort. The place we met was attached to the hotel he was staying and we had to walk past his room for me to get back to my car. Outside his room he said he really wanted me to come in and spend the night. I was like “naw, how about we meet for breakfast somewhere in the morning” and he agreed. The next day came and went, and after about a week I contacted him because I was genuinely concerned about what had happened to him. I had no interest in him at all, he having become an overweight bald guy but I still cared about a friend’s safety. When he answered the phone it was in a hushed whisper and when I asked why he was whispering he said he didn’t want to wake up his fiancée, now wife. I could ruin a marriage with this story, just sayin’.

There have been a couple of times since then when I’ve encountered inappropriate behaviour from guys I’ve had no interest in beyond being work colleagues or even friends. One co-worker invited me over to watch Raiders of the Lost Arc and I went, thinking there was no hidden agenda because I had made it abundantly clear at the time I wanted no part of any interaction with a man having just ended a three year relationship. This creep made a proposal that we become “friends with benefits” to which I replied “hell no”. The most awkward part was him having to drive me home in complete stony silence. Oh and having to work together for the next six months. A man’s libido really can wreck things.

I don’t know where I am going with this except to say that as I have gotten older, gained more confidence and self-respect, situations like this have become virtually non-existent for me. It could be because now I am a mom and probably put out some sort of ‘mom vibe’ with my sensible running shoes and prescription sunglasses. It’s unfortunate that we have to go through these things as we mature; some sort of sick rite of passage for us in order to gain the knowledge and courage to avoid potentially dangerous situations or to know how to fight back. To yell and scream and draw attention. I don’t put myself in the same category as someone who has experienced terrible abuse or assault. I can’t pretend to know what that would feel like afterwards and for the rest of your life. I know what it’s like to be treated like an object on the smallest scale in the grand scheme of things. I do know that as more people come forward and say “hey, that happened to me too” a greater awareness can be created for something that often lingers in silence. No one should feel ashamed when these things happen. You are not to blame.