By now we have all seen the #metoo statuses on Facebook, the
heart wrenching hashtag that may be accompanied by a simple statement, anecdote
or possibly nothing at all. But we all
know that it means that person has been sexually harassed or assaulted. The first day I saw this circulating, I
simply posted #metoo. No anecdote
included. This wasn’t because I didn’t
want to go into detail; but simply because it has happened so many times that I
couldn’t pick just one incident to speak about.
I know a long list of women who feel this way. I had just accepted this to be our story as
women. Our truth. Our collective experience.
I felt hardened to it.
What I mean is that when I reminisced on the infractions, large or relatively
small, the pain just didn’t come. I am a
master of deflecting pain with humor. I
knew I was a victim, I just didn’t feel
like one. That was until I saw an online news source post an article calling
for women to fight back physically against their attackers. I suddenly became nauseated and then it hit
me like a ton of bricks. I fell
apart. Anger and pain began to surface
that I had never acknowledged before.
Within my first few weeks of college, my teammates and I
went to a school sponsored dance on school property. Many of the other sports teams were going and
the older girls on the team thought this would be a fun way for us to meet
people in a social setting and not have to be involved in the “party
scene”. I was dancing with a football
player when one of his teammates came up to me, grabbed my waist and pulled me
into him. I did not appreciate what had
happened, so I pulled away and walked off.
I then felt a slap across the back of my head. He had hit me. I turned, looked him in the face and pushed
him. I told him not to ever do that to
me again. He then closed-fist-
full-grown-man-strength, punched me in the mouth. My head snapped back and I tasted blood. I took a few seconds to register what had
happened to me and then we were brawling on the floor. Not a ladylike reaction. But I wasn’t
interested in being ladylike. I was
interested in letting him know that he couldn’t get away with treating me that
way. The police were called and he took
off running. Some male students subdued
him until the police got there. He was
arrested (I assume) and I was taken to the emergency room.
This incident is not what I cried about. The fact that a man was so angry that I
wouldn’t let him control my body that he felt the need to hit me is not what
made me fall apart. The scar on my lip
that is permanently tender is not what I push down inside and ignore. It’s what happened next that still breaks my
heart. It’s that when my coach took me
to the assistant district attorney to discuss the case, my coach pressured me
to drop the charges because “If something like this gets in the paper, it could
be bad for the program”. What I still
feel to this day is betrayal in that even though the ADA told me not to feel
intimidated and pressured because he would stand by my side as I pursued the
case without my coaches’ support…I never heard from him again after our initial
conversation. What sickens me is the way the police
kept trying to find a way to turn the attack into a domestic violence incident
with their line of questioning because they wanted to sweep it under the rug as a
personal issue and not a crime. I recall the hollowness I felt when the head football coach came to me and said that this was a kid from a troubled
home that needed extra support and that he felt he could help change his life
if he kept him on the team and out of jail.
The only visible punishment given to my attacker was a forced apology to
me in front of my teammates and he made the apology to another girl because he
didn’t remember me. He didn’t even know
which one of us he had hit.
What I remember to this day is the way my attacker’s
teammates harassed me for the following year.
A rumor circulated that I hit him and attacked him and that he had done nothing
to me. I remember the helplessness I felt when I confronted one
of the guys who witnessed the assault and he told me he would never tell the truth
because the football program is “family” and they close ranks. I was told
I was responsible for the punch I received because I pushed him away from me after
he hit me the first time. I was the victim of character assassination that followed
me my entire college career.
My anger stems from the fact that nobody seemed to
understand that this man’s initial grabbing, pulling and grinding on me was
sexual assault in its own right. I as a
person, as a woman, mattered less than a football team. I mattered less than a basketball team. My well-being, safety and future mattered
less than a troubled kid with a bad home life with multiple infractions. I mattered less because he was a boy. A boy that could play football. I fought back as people are now suggesting, and
it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because
nobody else fought for me. No one fought
alongside me.
Why are we calling on victims to physically fight back? Why is the responsibility falling on us? Why
aren’t we teaching boys what is and isn’t acceptable and appropriate behavior?
And why aren’t we demanding that they are forced to deal with consequences when
they cross the line? Rather than asking
victims to fight back once the wrong has been committed, can we all agree
to fight back now, together, by teaching our children that this is not just a
women’s issue, but a human one. #wetoo
