{"id":6146,"date":"2016-12-13T12:33:58","date_gmt":"2016-12-13T19:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annenahm.com\/?p=6146"},"modified":"2016-12-13T13:01:34","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T20:01:34","slug":"how-to-raise-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annenahm.com\/?p=6146","title":{"rendered":"How to raise women"},"content":{"rendered":"

— pussy grabbing trigger warning —
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

OK, let me set the scene for this story:\u00a0 Late 1980s. I was 13, maybe 14, and my family had recently moved to South Dakota, so I was actively trying to make friends.\u00a0 A fair amount of B-rate hair bands blew through the local arena, and it was generally considered that the luckiest kids lived in our city, because we were big enough to host the likes of Skid Row, Bullet Boys, and Winger*.<\/p>\n

Does it seem weird to let a group of 13-year-olds go to a concert unattended from\u00a0 8\u00a0 to 11ish on a Saturday night?\u00a0 Frankly, between the current helicopter parenting and my somewhat feral childhood, I sometimes feel I have no good perspective.<\/p>\n

Anyway, at my last concert**, I got separated from my friends.\u00a0 I know exactly how this went down:\u00a0 We were in general admission floor, and one of my friends spotted another 13-14 year old we knew from school, who\u2019d climbed up on something and lifted her shirt up to her neck, to show her whole torso, bra exposed.\u00a0 The security guy pointed at her, and she got down, shrieking laughter.\u00a0 I thought they were going to throw her out.\u00a0 \u201cNo, they\u2019re going to let her go backstage!\u201d my friend shouted in my ear and pushed her way through the crowd to get to our classmate.<\/p>\n

Which is how I ended up alone, mostly because I was still in shockland of Wait, what?\u00a0 What just happened?\u00a0<\/em> And some super na\u00efve Why does taking your shirt off in front of a thousand people get you backstage?<\/em><\/p>\n

Anyway, a few minutes later, an adult man who stood in front of me reached back and grabbed me between the legs.\u00a0 The pussy, as it were.<\/p>\n

I jumped back, thinking he must have me confused with his girlfriend \u2013 he wasn\u2019t even looking at me for cripes sake, certainly it had to be a mistake.\u00a0 That\u2019s when he shoved his hand down the front of my jeans,\u00a0 into my underpants.\u00a0 I hit his arm many times. He never turned his head so I could see his face, but walked backwards to follow me as I tried to get away from him.\u00a0 After maybe 45 seconds, he withdrew, and I ran out of the concert, and used a pay phone to call my mom.<\/p>\n

She picked me up, worried for my friends, who wouldn\u2019t know what had happened to me.\u00a0 I told her I didn\u2019t care, because some guy had stuck his hand down my pants.\u00a0 After a moment, my mom said in a sad voice, \u201cWell, that\u2019s what happens at concerts.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was totally my last concert for a really long time.\u00a0 Still won\u2019t go to an arena concert, and fuck hairbands.<\/p>\n

That was nearly 30 years ago.\u00a0 As mother to girls, I am still struggling with this same issue.\u00a0 See, there is what should<\/em> happen, and what does<\/em> happen.\u00a0\u00a0 And then there’s how you raise someone to negotiate both truths.\u00a0 I think my mother was trying to protect me from future assaults, to show me the way the world works.<\/p>\n

But also, her response sucked.\u00a0 I mean, the pathos, the fact she somehow knew bad things were going to happen but didn\u2019t warn me about it prior, my residual fear following that night: what other events had secret rules?\u00a0 When was I safe and when should I know I wouldn’t be?\u00a0 The sense conveyed by my mom’s body language that there was really no way to protect from pussy grabbing (although I had halfway learned that from the experience already) — it was like bad weather, all you could do was huddle up and endure if you got caught up in it.<\/p>\n

Women have to do incredible mental gymnastics to hold both truths about themselves in their mind \u2013 Your body is your own business.\u00a0 You will get assaulted as part and parcel of life events.\u00a0 Men and women are equal.\u00a0 You are valued based on a scale of 1-10 assessing physical attributes.\u00a0 What happened to you is wrong, and also you asked for it, maybe in some way you didn\u2019t even realize you were asking.\u00a0 It\u2019s not your fault, but take these precautions to prevent it from happening.\u00a0 It is your fault.<\/p>\n

I guess one way to go is like my classmate from yesterdecade \u2013 don\u2019t deny a fucked up system, just learn to work it to get what you want. But god, that sucks.\u00a0 And I think, always ends up with the woman losing anyway.<\/p>\n

Mostly, I\u2019m concerned with the balance of how to teach my kids they should not put up with shitty behavior because they are women, without setting them up to be so far outside the social norms that they become targets.<\/p>\n

Even now, my older kids\u2019 classmates are saying stuff like, \u201cI don\u2019t care if I fail P.E., I’m not going to sweat and ruin my make-up.\u201d When one of my kids joined an extracurricular STEM Club, \u201cEw… that\u2019s for boys.\u201d\u00a0 At 10-12 there is definitely the groundwork that men are allowed to do stuff that women shouldn’t.\u00a0 Women should become objects.<\/p>\n

Last year, one of my local friends, who is big into volleyball, told me that within the amateur-competitive circuit in our area, there are courts that do not allow women to play (they are called \u2018pristine\u2019).\u00a0 When this friend told me this, she said it with an annoyed eye-roll, \u201cHmmph, boys will be boys!\u201d\u00a0 She has served dinner to a man who owns a pristine court.\u00a0 She believes showing him what a great player she is on other courts will prove to him she has the right to play his.<\/p>\n

Brock Turner got 3 months.\u00a0 The President Elect of the United States bragged about pussy grabbing, and got elected anyway.<\/p>\n

So I think that despite the fact its 2016, and a huge part of me can\u2019t believe I have to say and think these things, it seems a realistic concern that teaching my kids to be \u2018too\u2019 feminist\/requiring equal treatment\/refusing to play sexual-social games will probably result with social punishments ranging from isolation to potentially being ostracized or even targeted.\u00a0 How do you prepare kids for what should be true while also preparing them for what is?<\/p>\n

Input appreciated.<\/p>\n

PS:\u00a0 This is a terrific (and to me, radical) talk by Jill Soloway on the female gaze.\u00a0 Some of her points I\u2019m not totally on-board with (I\u2019d have to do more research on whether I think language is male oriented, and I think she\u2019s sometimes pretty harsh on cis males, etc.,), but I\u2019ve watched it a couple of times, and it has made me think about my internalized sexism, art as propaganda, and what tools are available to me in affecting change in the world.\u00a0 Maybe you will enjoy it too!<\/p>\n