This was supposed to be a happy post. A post filled with "Heck yeah, I'm starting a week of unusual pinup-influenced outfits!" and "YOU LOVE MY WACKY PRINTS. ADMIT IT. YOU KNOW YOU DO!"s. But thanks to a comment I got today...it won't be. This will be a pretty text-heavy post. But I think it'll be a pretty important post, too. So bear with me.
First a bit of backstory: On Saturday, I went out thrifting. Got a lot of really cool stuff, and was sitting on the bus with two bags, listening to the Good Omens audiobook on my Zune and generally enjoying life. The bus stopped, and an older man in his late 60s/early 70s got on. I didn't pay much attention, until he walked by me and I felt something brush my shoulder-and then my breast. This man apparently thought it was just fine and dandy for him to randomly grab my breast. Shocked, I loudly said "EXCUSE ME!" and he let go and continued down the aisle as if nothing happened. Heart racing, completely surprised, I announced to the bus at large, "That man just grabbed my breast!" The bus driver heard, two other passengers had seen, and to make a long story short the police were called, the man was arrested, and I left a statement with the police. I was not so much traumatized as angry-angry that that man thought he could touch me and get away with it, angry that he thought my body was his to do with as he liked, angry that he was surprised when I called him out and the police came for him, because he thought because he was old I would let him molest me.
Fast forward to today, and I was telling a friend about what happened during a break in my class. A male classmate overheard, and I explained the whole story to him. As we were walking back to class, he said "Maybe he saw the way you dress (pointing to my dress) and thought it was ok." Shocked and aghast, I glared at him. He hastily added "It was just a joke" but I told him "Not funny, dude" and walked away. I was hurt, and felt like I had been victimized all over again by his "joke" and attitude. I don't mention it much on this blog, because this is a fashion blog, not a political one, but...I am very, very fiercely feminist. And part of being a modern feminist is believing (as everyone should) that rape, assault, and similar crimes are all laid entirely at the feet of the person who commits them. That the victim is never responsible, because they are not. That "she was asking for it" is one of the most false and utterly repugnant phrases in the English language. To say that I take that view seriously would be a massive understatement. There are few things in this world that make me angrier when someone tries to argue that a rape is not a rape because a girl was drinking. Because she wore a short skirt. Because she walked alone at night. Because she trusted the wrong person. Because SHE did something-not because her attacker did something. Any excusal of rape or assault for any reason is utterly abhorrent to me. And yet here was a classmate, claiming I had invited assault by virtue of the way I dress.
For the record, I was wearing an ankle-length skirt and a high-necked t-shirt when this man decided that he wanted to cop a feel. But it shouldn't matter. I could have been wearing a burqa. I could have been wearing pasties and a thong. I could have been as naked as the day I was born. AND THAT MAN STILL SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO TOUCH ME IN THAT MANNER. The idea that women who wear "scanty" clothing "force" men to grope, assault, catcall, or otherwise harass them is not just insulting to women but to men. It implies that men are nothing more than their penises, that they are incapable of exercising even basic human courtesy and self-control in the face of a visible thigh or a cleavage-bearing shirt. That is simply untrue, and it's deeply offensive to all the good, fine, and upright men in the world that some assholes act like to be male is to lack impulse control. A woman's body is her own, and unless SHE, WITH HER WORDS, asks a man to touch it, to comment on it, to share pleasure with her in it, he has no right to it. It doesn't matter if she drinks, it doesn't matter what she is wearing. My clothing does not speak for me; my mouth does. If I want to wear a bellydance outfit out in public, or a miniskirt, I should be able to do so without fear of being assaulted. The fact that I (and millions of other women) feel like we can't is a pretty disgusting statement on our society. These kinds of attitudes are the reason SlutWalk and Take Back The Night were created. This bears repeating: The onus is not on sexual assault victims to avoid being assaulted. It is on the perpetrators not to commit assault.
To buy into the mentality that women who are raped or assaulted are somehow "asking for it" is not just unkind and cruel, it is idiotic. I did everything "right" in this case. I did my shopping in daylight. I was riding a relatively crowded public bus. I was not wearing revealing clothing. And I was still assaulted, because some man thought that the mere fact that I was being female in public gave him the right to touch me how he pleased. HE made the choice to touch me inappropriately. And now, God and the justice system willing, HE will pay the price for it. I spoke up, and the perpetrator was caught (and because he was caught on tape, will most likely be convicted); but the attitudes of people like my classmate, who think it is appropriate to joke that dressing a certain way means a woman invites assault, pervade our society to such a degree that many women in similar situations have not spoken up, for fear of just that kind of blame. If we want to stop these kinds of attitudes, we need to speak out against them-full stop. As members of a subculture, we are already frequently judged for what we wear and how we present ourselves in public, and being a woman makes it just that much harder. However, I refuse to let attitudes like my classmate's shape how I think, act, or dress. I wear my clothing to make ME happy, not to please him or anyone else. For the record, this was the outfit I had on today, that made him think it was ok to "joke" that I'd invited my assault by my manner of dress:
Alien Dress-made by me
Fishnets-Wal-Mart
Heels-Rabbit
I guess maybe it was the provocative alien print? The sexy elbow-length sleeves? Either way, his comment was not appropriate, and neither is the culture that created it. And in defiance of that culture, I will continue to wear what I like, and anyone who doesn't like it or thinks I'm not sufficiently modest or that I'm "asking for it" can take a long leap off a short pier. I will fight for every woman's right to feel safe no matter how she is dressed as long as there is breath in my body, and I will not let misogynistic, antiquated thinking stop me from doing it. More pin-up goodness tomorrow-and if this classmate says anything more, he can kiss my wiggle-skirt-clad ass!
