You know, years ago, while I was on my way out of the military, I had for a time, taken courses for Forestry service. Luckily thanks to my PTSD, I was unable to complete these and had to pay the VA back. I say luckily after I read this story. Out here No One Can Hear You Scream.
There is a certain bit of weird irony there.
It’s a piece on the Huffpo about female scientists, and park rangers and firefighters and the SHIT they have had to put up with from their “heroic” male counterparts. You know I am all for understanding the complexities for people, that they can do both grand and awful things, but seriously—since when did being a swashbuckling manly man include being a schmarmy rapist or groper?
Once again, male privilege telling them, that they are entitled to harass and fuck with some of America’s best and brightest women. This is why we can’t have nice things people—right here.
If I had a nickle for every time a male has told me that women “like that” need to get a sense of humor—I would be a rich woman.
You know I have a wicked sense of humor. I can make and listen to disgusting jokes all day long. BUT (and this is a big fat ole but coming here)—Most women are smart enough to detect the difference between a guy who is joking and a guy who is hoping to be groping. shocking I know.
Yes gentlemen, we are sometimes mind readers. Actually we are reading your body language, your tone of voice, we can see where your eyes go and there are significant differences in behavior between a man who is just hanging out and one that thinks he might be having sex soon. What that means, is that when you all make those jokes and say things that have two meanings when you are horny and looking at one of us—it’s not the same and if unwelcome, it can be scary as fucking hell.
I would like to point out that- If you have to use a boat or any vehicle to get a woman in the middle of nowhere and withhold food and water and access to a satellite phone in order to get sex—that makes you about the same genetically, as those creeps that kidnap women and lock them in basements. What you are telling the world is that you know that women will turn you down for sex, and that means you have to trick them into going to an isolated area in order to coerce them into having sex for food, shelter and safety.
That’s fucked up. And that says a whole lot about you as a “person”. That’s the kind of guy they make television specials about, to warn women about the dangers of perverts and rapists. Is that really what you had in mind? When you were a kid—did you often lay in bed and say to yourself:
“Golly gee, I can’t wait til I grow up, so I can take a woman into the middle of a desert and withhold, food, water, communications with the outside world, and directions, so that I can coerce her into having sex with me.”
What the fuck man? That’s called taking a victim to a secondary crime scene, you realize that right? Is that what you had in mind? Trick a woman into going off alone with you under the pretense of a job, and then taking the “target” to a secondary crime scene in the hopes that she will not resist or if she does, there will be no witnesses?
That’s not consensual. That’s harassment and that is being a sexual predator. There is nothing erotic about that. That just makes a guy a creep and puts him in legal jeopardy if he harasses her or worse.
And that whole—“She was drinking.” Yea, I bet she was. She was probably gulping a stiff drink down while she contemplates sticking a tent stake through your fucking head—wondering if she is strong enough to defend herself against you, if she has the stomach to hurt you bad enough to make you stop what she knows you want to do. Because let’s face it, women are allowed to use deadly force to defend themselves from rape. She was probably taking a stiff drink, wondering how it was, that she graduated from college successfully, to become a trained professional, and she still ended up in the middle of nowhere with her so-called “Colleagues” who are scaring the shit out of her. She needs a drink because she just had a moment of lucidity in realizing just how fucked up the world really is and that it doesn’t matter if she is a hooker or a scientist, she is at risk from perverts no matter what. She needs a drink while she contemplates her professional future, because no matter what, a “winning dude” like those described in these stories will spread rumors about what they wish she did, whether she did it or not. She’s having a drink because all that, and more is flying through her brain like meteors tearing through the sky and she probably doesn’t know what to do or what she might have to do, to survive or to salvage her career or her reputation. Ask me how I know.
I have been there. It’s terrifying. It enrages a person. It’s disgusting and disappointing. And most of all, the disbelief by others in this country, who might imagine themselves enlightened reasonable people will shoot you down if you try to tell your story, even in private. Because no one wants to see the billions upon billions of flies in our American Freedom Ointment.
You all realize that, this is yet another aspect of the gigantic problem women face in STEM careers. But also in ALL CAREERS! Holy Fuck what the FUCK is wrong with these assholes! It’s not as if there aren’t enough willing sex partners out there! But oh yea, this isn’t about sex. This is about hosing the deck down with their piss and testosterone because they feel threatened by women who might be as smart or smarter than they are. Who might be as skilled or more skilled than they are. They are afraid if a person with a vagina wins (because everything is a competition these days) that it makes that guy an actual walking vagina! Because vaginas are bad, unless you can fuck one. Or so I have been lead to believe by our enlightened, artful culture of fucktwits.
For fucks sake people grow the fuck up.
I am so goddamned tired of this. So tired of the bullshit and the lies, and the excuses, and the never ending repetitious stories that ooze out of every orifice of American culture.
If there is a genuine desire for a sexual relationship, there are acceptable ways of making one’s wishes known that don’t involve wielding an AX. And FYI, it doesn’t involve taking a “target” or a “piece of ass” to a secondary isolated crime scene.
Males who act like the ones in this story, aren’t really horny. They are angry. And sexual aggression is how they express their anger and hatred toward females. They don’t just need to be educated about how not to act, they need some anger management course work too. Most of all, this culture needs to stop making excuses for people who act like that.
I wonder if these males ever make the connection in their own minds, when they have daughters of their own? It shouldn’t have to work that way, but often does. I wonder if-- when they have daughters of their own, and that little girl starts looking like a grown woman, and goes off to college, if they cringe at the thought she might have to contend with someone who acts just like they did at one time.
People can change. But I wonder if they are brave enough themselves to put a stop to this, or if they just crawl under a rock and hope no one remembers what they did. If you only protect your daughter—that doesn’t really count as change. Just as self interest. Try again.
What this story tells me?
As a child I grew up impoverished. People often assumed (as they still do) that uneducated, poor females are easy targets for sexual harassment and rape. After all we are too poor to have a lawyer and too ignorant to avoid the situations that lead to these situations. In fact as a poor gold digger we might seek out sexual relationships to access money and resources (because that’s what poor girls do). (snark)
But my experience in the military, and this story say—it doesn’t matter if you are poor. It doesn’t matter if you are not poor, if you are uneducated or highly educated. That if you are female, then you are a target for sexualized, male hostility no matter what.