There has been a lot talk about the #metoo movement which I believe is absolutely amazing. It is great that we are finding the courage to speak up and to try and stop the abuse of women and children. Until recent years it was not something people discussed. It was not proper to talk about it or to stand up for what was right. It was none of your business what was going on in someone else’s family, and if it was in your family well then just do what your told and don’t cause problems.
The promise I made to my daughter the day she was born was to protect her and to keep her safe. Being that I was abused as a child it was my biggest fear that she would also be abused. This fear was so intense that anyone that made me feel uneasy, justified or not, was not allowed to be alone with her. I would only leave her with the few people I trusted. The result was a little girl who grew up feeling safe. I always told her that if anyone touched her or made her feel yucky to tell. And if the first person you told doesn’t believe you then tell another. I was really able to reiterate this to her because I was not believed by my mother but I don’t regret telling. It was better than continuing to live in an unsafe home.
But then she became a teenager and the conversation changed. It changed to talking to her about being aware of her surroundings, to stay in groups and to not be alone with boys she didn’t know well. If something is telling you it’s not right, then it’s probably not right. She began to drink and started to do some pretty heavy drugs. This of course lead her into a high risk lifestyle and the people who were in her peer group were just as much of a mess as she was. The need to do drugs put her into some pretty bad situations and some pretty bad stuff happened to her that would keep me up at night, sick to my stomach and constantly worrying about her.
When my sons were born I made them the same promise, that I would protect them and keep them safe but the fear wasn’t the same. I wasn’t as afraid that they would be abused because they were boys. I was still as diligent about who was allowed to be around them but the fear wasn’t as intense as it was with my daughter.
When my oldest son became a teenager I was more worried about him getting into fights or being reckless, and he was very reckless. By the time he turned 20 he had already wrote off more than one vehicle, he’s had an impaired, broken many bones and been in a countless amounts of fights. He came home with bruises and scrapes all the time.
The thing is that since this #metoo movement I have had a really hard time with the fact that in these he said, she said instances.
Never in a million years did I think I would be having a similar conversation with my sons that I had with my daughter. I am warning them to stay in groups and to not be alone with a girl because if she chooses to accuse him its his word against hers and the majority will side with her. In most cases the girl is automatically believed and the boy has to defend himself? Of course I think that the girl’s family and support group should believe her, of course they should have her back, and of course it should be reported. My issue is more with public conviction of boys just because she said it happened. On the other hand there is a lot of victim shaming. The masses will generally believe the girl and I have to think it’s because lying about something like this is so brutal it couldn’t possibly happen, except it does, all the time. DNA testing has proved it over and over again as men are being released from prison for crimes they didn’t commit.
There was a case in the USA recently where a girl and a boy had sex. She did not tell him she didn’t want to, she didn’t say no but she also didn’t say yes. When it was over she accused him of rape. She said she was too scared to say no and so she just did it. He swears he thought she wanted to, he said he could tell she was nervous but so was he and that if she would have said no he would have stopped. How is this fair to that boy? How is it OK that she can accuse him of such a horrendous crime, something that is going to affect him for the rest of his life even though she didn’t say no and he didn’t force himself on her? If convicted he is never going to be able to volunteer at his children’s school or other activities, he is going to have to tell every potential partner that he was convicted of this crime, it will affect his ability to get a job, it will affect him for the rest of his life. He could very well be convicted too because there are new laws in some states that require affirmative consent which means that there must be affirmative, conscious and voluntary consent which he didn’t have because he didn’t ask her if she wanted to, she didn’t actually say yes and because she was visibly nervous.
Learning about the above mentioned case led into a conversation I never thought I would have with my sons. I have told them over and over that they need to outright and ask the girl, do you want to do this? I have explained to them that lots of times a girl will do what you want her to just because she wants you to like her, or maybe it’s because she hasn’t found her voice, she isn’t strong enough to stand up for herself. I have said that it is now up to them to make sure that girl has a voice, its up to them to make sure she feels safe enough to say she doesn’t want to.
I know that personally there has been a few times where I didn’t want to be doing what I was doing, but I did anyway. Scared to say no, worried he might not like me anymore etc. I told them about a time when I was 19 and I was with a guy I liked. We were out driving around and ended up back at his place. We started to fool around, but I didn’t want to have sex. I also didn’t tell him that I didn’t want to. I really liked him and wanted him to like me. He must have been able to tell that I was nervous because he asked me; do you even want to do this? I said not really, and he said OK, I can take you home if you want. I have always been so grateful to him for that. But if we had continued, if we would have had sex that night I would not have in a million years accused him of rape. He is also the only person that has ever actually asked me if I wanted to have sex but that in no way means that the other people I have been with did something wrong.
I had a friend tell me that boys don’t deserve to be defended in this manner and that throughout history women have suffered at the hands of men. Does this mean that boys and men now don’t deserve to be heard? That they get to automatically be guilty? It’s important to think about how the world in general has changed. As mothers we are teaching our sons to be respectful to women, more then we ever have. In my last post I talked about how my husband wouldn’t allow our sons to talk to their sister because she was with a much older man who was clearly taking advantage of and controlling her. My husband didn’t want our sons to grow up thinking that behavior was OK. He didn’t want them to find any sort of normalcy in men having power over women or girls and it worked because more then once my boys have come home and talked about how some girl in high school is dating some “loser” who they feel is taking advantage of her. We need to be the change we want to see in our sons and this starts at home by watching their fathers treat the women in theirs lives with respect, and watching their mother and the other women in their lives demand it. It is every ones responsibility to create a safe world for our daughters and our sons.
