Don’t tell your daughter that when a boy is mean or rude to her it’s because he has a crush on her. Don’t teach her that abuse is a sign of love.
My mom always taught me yell or fight back. Boys would be mean and I would yell back. I would get my ass pinched and I would smack them as hard as I could.
Who alway got in trouble? Me.
They would call my mother and she always came in and lectures my teachers and threatened to sue for making her miss work and treating me poorly.
She always taught my brothers to respect women. The only fights my brothers ever got in was defending women from someone else.
The school tried to call my father once instead of my mother on us. He came in in his full preacher outfit (being a preacher and all) and gave them an entire sermon on what would Jesus day of he was called in. They decided dealing with my mom was better.
I think my favorite story of this is when some kid snapped my bra and I turned around, didn’t even think about it, and punched that little motherfucker right in the nose.
So naturally, I end up in the principal’s office, refusing to apologize.
“He shouldn’t have put his hands on me and I wouldn’t have hit him!” That’s the only thing I was saying.
These people had the unfortunate luck of catching my dad at home, instead of my mom. So he comes fucking sauntering in there, like he’s Clint fucking Eastwood in some western movie and looks at me.
“Melissa, did you punch him?”
“Yes.” I said.
“Why?”
“Because he snapped my bra strap.”
And he turns his squinty eyed glare to the principal and says, “You’re telling me my daughter is in trouble because that squirrely looking kid put his hands on her and she chose to defend herself? That’s what you are saying to me.”
“Well, sir-” The man kind of stuttered because my dad is kind of intimidating in the quiet sort of way that kind of whispers in the back of your mind that this person could be dangerous. “Melissa did make it physical.”
“No. That kid put his hands on my daughter. Are you saying my daughter cannot defend herself when some boy decides to put hands on her? Is that what you are teaching my girl?”
I didn’t get suspended that day.
^^YOU. YES. I LOVE YOU. LET’S TELL THESE STORIES.
Let me tell you a little story about the time I learned what boys could do. Let me tell you about when I was in fourth grade and a boy cornered my skinny underdeveloped ass at recess, day after day, and grabbed my thigh to cop a feel while he threatened to break it, under the eye of the teacher. Let me tell you about how I was too damaged-confused-inept to know that sex and violence could go hand in hand, but went home and cried anyway because I knew a threat when I felt it. Let me tell you about how my mother hugged me tight and promised that I was worth something, and then sat me down and said ‘Baby bear, you do what you have to do,’ said ‘Baby bear, if he puts his hands on you and you feel scared, you make him take his hands off.’ Let me tell you about how one day I reached my limit and punched him in the face, shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Let me tell you about how the teacher, the woman who had seen what he did every day, shouted at me for attacking him and marched me down to the principal’s office while the boy went to the nurse. Let me tell you about how I got detention and a sentence to the prison of the school counselor for ‘anger management issues’ while the boy wandered around without a single bruise. Let me tell you about how I got a handwritten death threat in my backpack, in the boy’s handwriting, and how the principal and the teachers did nothing while my parents fought for me and I raged and checked window locks and signed up for martial arts. Let me tell you about how my child-self, abused physically and emotionally by her extended family, blamed herself for everything, everything, everything, and how the counselor taught me that it was my fault, taught me to torture myself with guilt over using violence.
Let me tell you a little story about the time when I realized that violence is sometimes the only answer you have. Let me tell you about when I was eleven in a tiny town in Montana, and I’d been fighting with an older boy for months. Let me tell you about how he made me feel like a rabbit facing a fox, or about how his two sisters, both over six years his senior, were terrified of him, or about how his parents couldn’t control him. Let me tell you about how I admitted, shamefaced, to my parents that I just couldn’t stand to be in a room with him, and my mother sat me down again, and this time she said things like “Stay with witnesses” and “Don’t be afraid to run” and “Go for the throat, for the nose, for the balls” and “Get him on the ground” and “Be brutal.” Let me tell you about how he caught me alone in a room and pinned me to a wall and kissed me hard, and how I slipped out under his arm and ran like the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels, straight into a room full of adults. Let me tell you about how he caught me anyway, yanked me around and punched me in the stomach. Let me tell you about how I answered his punch with my own, one-two-three, nose-groin-chokehold, and forced him to the ground as he gasped for air. Let me tell you about how I shook with adrenaline this time and how his sisters thanked me and cried with relief and how I held my chin high.
Let me tell you about the eighteen-year-old who decided he was dating me when I was fourteen, hands all over me at a summer festival, and when I punched him he laughed at me for playing ‘hard to get.’ Let me tell you about the two boys in high school who harassed me for two years, who made me so worried I brought a knife to school, who only stopped when I slammed one of them into a table for touching me, pinning him by the throat as I described what I would do to him if he tried again. Let me tell you about the boy just this year who attacked me in my own dorm room, pinned me to my roommate’s bed and forced his tongue into my mouth, his hand down my shirt and under my bra, and how I jammed my thumb so hard into his trachea he choked, and how he called his assault a ‘romantic gesture’.
Let me tell you about ‘boys will be boys.’ Let me tell you about ‘ignore them and they’ll go away.’ Let me tell you about ‘there’s never a reason for violence.’ Let me tell you about ‘You should never hurt someone, no matter what they did to you.’ Let me tell you about ‘he must have a crush on you.’ Let me tell you about ‘why didn’t you tell a teacher.’
Let me tell you.
And then you tell me.
(via adelindschade)
