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Let's All Be Badasses.
Dec. 21st, 2010 12:38 amThere's an update at Jezebel about the awesome woman who yelled down her subway harasser.
The update is all kinds of positive, and the comments are full of stories of women talking about their own reactions to harassment. What's so amazing to me is that there are people talking about how they didn't speak up and how they look back with regret. And I want to say: It's okay. Who you were then isn't who you are now, and because you now have the grit to tell someone to leave you the fuck alone doesn't mean you should ashamed you didn't have you in you then. It's a learning process.
My learning process came over years. My childhood had huge chunks of absolute shit, and that led to be deciding I wasn't going to let anyone get me again. It wasn't a perfect process. Growing up where I did, there was a lot of "boys will be boys" bullshit, and it took a long time to realize that harassment came in a lot of varieties.
But I learned, and maybe you can learn, too. So let's have story time:
I grew up in a very, very small town. A very southern football town where the guy in charge of punishment at my high school was the football coach. Football players (and athletes in general) had free reign to be the kind of assholes you see in after school specials. I actually knew a guy who got a hernia due to football hazing, and the coach/vice-principal wasn't fired because he got the team to lie for him and say he was in the lockerroom.
In high school, I was all chest. My hips hadn't come in yet, and I was a 36C with a 29-inch waist. Top-heavy only begins to describe it. Due to this, I was sexually harassed nearly constantly from the time I was about 14. My senior year in high school, I got the gift of a guy we will call Clark Fuckbrains. Clark Fuckbrains was a first-stringer on the football team and decided his goal in life that year was to be an absolute douche to me every single day during seventh hour German. Our German professor did what he could, but as Clark was a football player, he never got punished for being a douche, and so I was left to defend myself.
Let it be known: My parents knew what was going on, and they wanted to help, but they were very aware of the status quo at the high school, and I told them I had it handled.
For awhile, I did. I've never been one to fall to verbal attacks (courtesy of the requisite fucked childhood). Verbal attacks, to me, were a chance to point out what a fucking moron Clark Fuckbrains was. The guy had no clue how to use language as a weapon. Case in point, he walked in one day with a T-shirt that read, "Your village called. They want their idiot back," and the following exchange occured.
HIM: "Hey. Hey, Perpet. Hey."
ME: "WHAT."
HIM: [Pointing at shirt] "Look at it. What are you gonna do? Huh?"
ME: [Taking my time reading the shirt.] "Well, I guess I'll help you pack. When do you leave?"
The people around us started howling with laughter. It took him five minutes to figure out he'd been insulted.
That was the worst of it for months. Fuckbrains would try to insult me, I'd verbally win against him, and he'd sulk away. From there, it escalated to name-calling. Bitch. Whore. So on and so forth. Stuff I hadn't learned yet was full-on harassment but that I knew was wrong.
( and then he touched me )
This isn't me telling you to do what I did. I was in very specific circumstances, and I'm a very, very blunt person. You fuck with me? I fuck with you. It's that simple.
So take away this, if nothing else: It's easier to be a badass knowing someone will back you. My parents kept out of it at my request, but when it came down to the line, my dad was there, and my mom was there, and I went back to school and got Clark Fuckbrains to leave me the hell alone for a few days.
And if you're looking around and thinking no one will back you, I'm right here. Someone fucking with you? You yell at that person? I'm backing you. Someone fucking with you, and you remove yourself from the situation without saying anything? I'm backing you. Someone fucking with you? I'm backing you, no matter how you respond.
The update is all kinds of positive, and the comments are full of stories of women talking about their own reactions to harassment. What's so amazing to me is that there are people talking about how they didn't speak up and how they look back with regret. And I want to say: It's okay. Who you were then isn't who you are now, and because you now have the grit to tell someone to leave you the fuck alone doesn't mean you should ashamed you didn't have you in you then. It's a learning process.
My learning process came over years. My childhood had huge chunks of absolute shit, and that led to be deciding I wasn't going to let anyone get me again. It wasn't a perfect process. Growing up where I did, there was a lot of "boys will be boys" bullshit, and it took a long time to realize that harassment came in a lot of varieties.
But I learned, and maybe you can learn, too. So let's have story time:
I grew up in a very, very small town. A very southern football town where the guy in charge of punishment at my high school was the football coach. Football players (and athletes in general) had free reign to be the kind of assholes you see in after school specials. I actually knew a guy who got a hernia due to football hazing, and the coach/vice-principal wasn't fired because he got the team to lie for him and say he was in the lockerroom.
In high school, I was all chest. My hips hadn't come in yet, and I was a 36C with a 29-inch waist. Top-heavy only begins to describe it. Due to this, I was sexually harassed nearly constantly from the time I was about 14. My senior year in high school, I got the gift of a guy we will call Clark Fuckbrains. Clark Fuckbrains was a first-stringer on the football team and decided his goal in life that year was to be an absolute douche to me every single day during seventh hour German. Our German professor did what he could, but as Clark was a football player, he never got punished for being a douche, and so I was left to defend myself.
Let it be known: My parents knew what was going on, and they wanted to help, but they were very aware of the status quo at the high school, and I told them I had it handled.
For awhile, I did. I've never been one to fall to verbal attacks (courtesy of the requisite fucked childhood). Verbal attacks, to me, were a chance to point out what a fucking moron Clark Fuckbrains was. The guy had no clue how to use language as a weapon. Case in point, he walked in one day with a T-shirt that read, "Your village called. They want their idiot back," and the following exchange occured.
HIM: "Hey. Hey, Perpet. Hey."
ME: "WHAT."
HIM: [Pointing at shirt] "Look at it. What are you gonna do? Huh?"
ME: [Taking my time reading the shirt.] "Well, I guess I'll help you pack. When do you leave?"
The people around us started howling with laughter. It took him five minutes to figure out he'd been insulted.
That was the worst of it for months. Fuckbrains would try to insult me, I'd verbally win against him, and he'd sulk away. From there, it escalated to name-calling. Bitch. Whore. So on and so forth. Stuff I hadn't learned yet was full-on harassment but that I knew was wrong.
( and then he touched me )
This isn't me telling you to do what I did. I was in very specific circumstances, and I'm a very, very blunt person. You fuck with me? I fuck with you. It's that simple.
So take away this, if nothing else: It's easier to be a badass knowing someone will back you. My parents kept out of it at my request, but when it came down to the line, my dad was there, and my mom was there, and I went back to school and got Clark Fuckbrains to leave me the hell alone for a few days.
And if you're looking around and thinking no one will back you, I'm right here. Someone fucking with you? You yell at that person? I'm backing you. Someone fucking with you, and you remove yourself from the situation without saying anything? I'm backing you. Someone fucking with you? I'm backing you, no matter how you respond.
