It’s a Sunday morning and my friends and I are lightheartedly rehashing the details of the previous night over pancakes and bacon — until one of my best friends clears her throat and says she couldn’t get away from a boy who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.
When you grow up surrounded by boys who can just be, simply put, lazy when it comes to respecting women, you begin to get used to the mistreatment and heartbreaking stories. You don’t expect to get asked on dates, or be someone’s girlfriend and talking is only through Snapchats of ceilings and foreheads like you don’t deserve a simple in-person conversation.
My first exposure to a rape story was the Brock Turner case in 2015. I was 10-years old when I heard of Turner’s sexual assault on an unconscious victim in an alleyway. As a little girl, I couldn’t understand why people chose to hurt others, and my mom simply explained to me that he was a boy who never grew up with consequences.
Turner stripped his victim of her dignity and sense of safety for the price of only three months in jail — although the recommended time was six years — and an additional three months of community service. He committed a disgusting crime, but what disturbed me the most was how little a consequence he faced from it.
It’s terrifying to think that future generations of girls could witness, or be a victim, of what I only heard about. I don’t want myself and those girls to continue to grow up with the understanding that rape and sexual assault result in little punishment. That understanding is how thousands of girls have grown up to be women who have to prepare for sexual assault, and it’s grossly wrong. I’m sick of being told the dozens of ways I can protect myself against sexual assault, but never see men being taught how to respect women.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, incidents of rape and sexual assault have doubled from one victim per 1,000 people in 2017 to 2.7 victims in 2018 within ages 12 and older. In the era of the #MeToo movement, daughters, sisters and mothers should be able to know their voice is heard and respected when it comes to sexual assault and rape stories. Yet, now more than ever with rape and sexual assault cases rising, men are overly praised for doing the bare minimum.
When I say the bare minimum, I mean the fact that my cousin in college walks into a bar, hands her drink to her guy friend to protect it from being roofied, and he’s applauded when the cup is returned safely to her. I mean it should be expected for a girl to be taken home safely after a night of drinking, instead of being violated — unresponsive or not. I mean when women are asked for consent. I mean when women are shown basic respect by being taken out for a date, getting asked how their day was and being complimented rather than used for their body and degraded as a human being. Not a single of those notions should be “special” — they should be baseline expectations.
The bar of respect for women is at an all-time low, according to countless women’s experiences, including myself and my own friends. Our status as women who’ve never been sexual assault or rape victims feels like one with an expiration date when every party, social gathering or relationship results in some sort of unwanted and uncalled for sexual encounter.
The simple idea of a woman’s boundaries being respected needs to be expected. Otherwise, we’ll never find peace, we’ll always be worried about our safety and always on edge. So change the expectations and raise the bar for the treatment of women — not just for your, sisters, mothers, future wives and daughters, but for all women.