“I always like a good dare,” an older white man said to me at the Trump rally. He sneered, looking me up and down. He had chosen to wear a “Make America Great Again” hat. I wore a plain white t-shirt featuring the message, “Grab My P***y, I Dare You.”...
I have been fortunate enough to have had a multitude of strong female role models throughout my life. Women like my mother and grandmother have really helped a lot to shape my view of the world, instilling in me a strong moral compass and a strong will. From a very young age, my mother raised me to always un-apologetically express my opinions and stand for what I think is right, even when faced with what seems like overwhelming opposition.
It never dawned on me that there are people who do not share this belief — that, as a woman, I am just as powerful as any man and have the same right to speak my mind. It never occurred to me that growing up with these beliefs was not the norm for everyone. That is, until I was in junior high school.
It was a warm, sunny, late summer day, and I was in the fifth grade. I was on my way home from school on the school bus. I remember feeling very mature because I had just started riding the bus home, but was also deeply concentrating on the stops the bus was making (the day before I had missed my own). It was in the midst of my unwavering vigilance that something lightly hit my face.
Unhurt, but a bit startled, I looked down and saw what had been thrown at me: A crumpled piece of paper sat on my lap. I uncrumpled it, and read the word “p***y,” scrawled in capital letters. Puzzled, I looked around to find a culprit. I saw two boys, a grade or two younger than me, snickering to each other and peeking back at me from their seats. I frowned. I didn’t know what their message meant, but I could tell by the way that they were acting that whatever it was, it was not meant as a compliment. I looked at it again. Were they calling me a scaredy cat?
I decided to find out exactly what the note meant as soon as I got home. After typing the term into Google’s search bar, I was immediately confronted with disgusting, sexually explicit, and overall horrifying content. That’s where my mother found me: scrolling, wide-eyed and confused. She told me what the word meant and tried her best to explain what these search results meant about womanhood. How does one teach an 11-year-old that she is growing up in a culture that objectifies her?
I suddenly became very aware of my gender. If I ever wore a skirt that was a bit too short, which is a common occurrence because I am tall, I found I received disapproving looks and snickers from classmates. I learned to become deeply offended if someone told me I was “acting like a girl.”
I realized that from an alarmingly early age, girls are taught by the world they live in that their gender is synonymous with weakness and inadequacy. A multitude of mainstream advertisements feature overtly sexual content and, dishearteningly, most of these ads specifically degrade women. Women seductively eat cheeseburgers, women sexily drink beer, and women wash expensive cars scantily clad — all the while maintaining a sultry, yet also unnervingly torpid, gaze at the camera. These depictions don’t promote positive models for how women can proudly own their sexuality, but rather send the message that female sexuality exists for the gratification of a consumer — of men.
I also realized that instead of buying into this negative, media-based depiction of female sexuality, women must resist and employ their sexuality for themselves. They must lift other women up, and in turn, each other as well.
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