Girlhood

When I was fifteen years old, I was walking to the library. It was a hot summer day; I was wearing a tank-top and a skirt. The music coming from my headphones was interrupted by a man, around sixty years old, who whistled at me. He yelled “looking good” and winked at me.

I simply rolled my eyes and kept walking, but my mind couldn’t let go of it. So, I decided to report it to the police, I started googling, and then it hit me. Verbal sexual harassment is not illegal. There is nothing you can do against it, at least in my home country Austria.

I was disappointed and disgusted, but it also got me thinking. I can not report this seemingly harmless incident to the police, but what about all the woman who are unable to report being raped and abused.

In Iran for example, woman and young girls are being raped every day, by the police.

As written in the following article: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/iran-security-forces-used-rape-and-other-sexual-violence-to-crush-woman-life-freedom-uprising-with-impunity/ . These women are not only sexually abused by strangers, the abusers are their husbands, or even the police. The most dangerous place for a woman is her own home. This sentence should be false and outrageous, but it is simply the truth.

It starts in the womb, have you ever seen a gender reveal? It is supposed to be a joyous occasion where people get together and find out what is in their child’s pants. But in most of them, there is disappointment, usually the fathers are sad, that their child will be a female, a girl, a future woman. Boy-moms talk about how you don’t experience parenthood, until you have a boy. Truly, no one likes women. They are more likely to be assaulted, raped and discriminated against than (white) men.

They learn to hide their adventurous ways and opinions, as to not make men uncomfortable.

It happens in schools too, from my experience it is not unusual for teenage boys to talk about masturbation and porn, but God forbid a girl talks about her period. Pads and Tampons are passed along similar to a drug deal. The shame is learned early, and it only gets worse.

I could name countless times, where I have been ashamed, to be a woman. Bleeding on my pants, being cat-called and assaulted, or being told not to talk about unpleasant topics, when I brought previous things up in a conversation.

So why did I write this? To whine and complain, as women do?

No! It is more to talk about it, we need to talk about all of this, until it changes, any chance we get, we need to take. As said by Gisele Pelicot, shame needs to change sides.

So lets talk about it, we have established the time a woman spends in her mothers womb, after that she is a baby, then a toddler. She plays with dolls and wooden kitchens, while her brother plays with action figures. Of course there are more progressive homes, but this is still what is generally happening. Then, she goes to school. She talks about boys a lot, crushes or how disgusting they are.

Then she goes to middle school, where she is taught many things, how to dress "appropiatly", how to behave in a way that doesnt irritate others and how to keep secrets. After that comes high school. She focuses on her studies, where she learns about Philosophers, Nietsche and Camu, men who hated women, but it doesnt matter. She graduates, goes to college and gets a job.

Then she is in for a treat, she gets to feel uncomfortable asking for raises, because she was never taught how to speak up for herself. She might even get married. Taking over most of the household and childcare, cooking, cleaning and everything else, while also working for less money than her husband. It sounds depressing, doesnt it? That is girlhood, for the most part at least.

I could name many more times, where men have been disgusting towards me, like the stranger on the street who said "it doesnt matter, you are my princess." After I told himm (at least thirty years old) that I was not even sixteen yet. Or the guy that said "Heyoo" to my boobs as I walked home from the movie theater at thirteen years old (he was well in his twenties)

And all women I know could tell simialar tales, so if you are a man, please think about your micro habits. Do you speak in a condesending tone, when explaining things to a woman? Do you observe women in a sexual manner, before you consider their personalities? Do better!