What is the worst thing that a man did that hurt you in any way?
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Two decades of emotional and verbal abuse by my father. He had a toxic relationship with his late mother who had rejected and humiliated him as a child. He grew up bitter and resentful and took revenge on the women around him - mostly me. Starting the age of 5, I'd constantly hear how I was "an embarrassment, good of nothing, stupid, lazy and stubborn, just like your idiot mother". I didn't "deserve anything good". He'd scream at me and argue for silly or invented reasons. He'd slam my room's door while I was sleeping and start cursing at me. If I made little mistakes - such as forgetting to buy bread on my way home - he'd yell that I did it with intention, and only "to mock him".
I developed early depression, anxiety, panic attacks, limitative beliefs, along with a very low self-esteem. Attempted suicide twice, when I was 10 and 12. I began healing after I moved away and started therapy. I'm better now, but I still have a long way to go. I haven't seen or spoken to my father for more than 3 years. He doesn't seem to miss me.
When I was 17 I was at a party flirting with this guy. I said something along the lines of 'I don't think you could handle me', teasing ya know. We leave to fool around. But things started getting rough so I told him to slow down. He punched me in the face and told me to 'shut the f**k up'. He grabbed me by my hair and threw me on my knees and shoved his c**k in my mouth. I tried to pull away and told him to stop. He bashed my head a few more times, held both sides of my face, and f**ked my throat. All while saying 'This is what you wanted'. He did it so hard I threw up on him. He hit me again, pushed me off of him. He told me I was disgusting then started laughing saying 'what thought you said you could handle it.'
It was traumatizing, but I buried deep inside and dismissed it as just a bad lay. I'm the one that made the first move. I wanted to fool around so in my mind it wasn't assault. Besides I've always been a fighter, but I froze. It wasn't until several years later I realized it was rape. Maybe it's dumb, but when you hear rape, you don't think oral, at least not me. Also, I could've just bitten it, so couldn't have been too bad right? I struggled with whether it was rape because I didn't fight as hard as I thought I would have. I was terrified, and he could have killed me. Took me several more years to realize that it was not my fault. I said yes to the party, yes to drinks, I said yes to flirting, yes to hanging out, yes to sex, but I SURE AS F**K DID NOT SAY YES TO BEING RAPED, HUMILIATED AND ASSAULTED! I said no. This went on long, and is a bit all over the place. I just got so pissed off thinking about it.
When I lived alone, my boyfriend stayed with me overnight. He drank a lot and took sedatives. At night, I woke up to a burning smell and found charred food on the stove in the kitchen. I freaked out and woke up my boyfriend and he went on top of me. There was nothing alive left in his eyes and I tried to call for help. He knocked the phone out of my hand and during the struggle I got to the stairwell of my apartment building to call for help. On the way down, I rang the neighbors' doorbells and was almost out until he caught me and dragged me back into the apartment. I screamed for my life and he knocked me to the ground and started strangling me. The next thing I saw was work boots next to me and two policemen lifted him off me. Charges were brought against him and I would have been ready for mediation, but the prosecutor wanted a verdict. He received the heaviest fine that my country has to offer. The police officer who took my statement was really warm and nice. I will definitely remember it forever. And indeed, the police came within minutes, so I survived.
Once in middle school I was just minding my business when a guy randomly told me "You turn me off" I don't know if should have been offended or not about it :( (I mean, at least nobody has done bad things to me but that still hurt)
In 6th grade, I had this gym teacher who made me sit out and failed me because we were playing "men's sports" and there was "no reason for a girl to play because you would just screw things up." I was so happy to hear that he was fired the next year.
In 8th grade I was constantly harassed by a group of boys, mostly in my algebra class. They would talk over me, scream in my ear, drop inappropriate notes on my desk, and, the worst for me, literally f*****g meow at me whenever they saw me (they also did some incredibly rude and disrespectful things in class, but they weren’t directed at me). Constantly. It caused my really really severe anxiety (I am still triggered by the sound of person meowing and one boy in particular). I told the school counselor, who ‘chatted’ with them once. They continued, I told her again, and she basically told me she could do f**k-all if they weren’t willing to stop, and she couldn’t move them out of my classes because we were in the advanced math. The saddest part was that the worst one, who still scares me, used to be a really funny dorky kid. The entitlement of pubescent well-off white boys.
Shortly after I finished extensive cancer treatment, my step-mom died. The night of her funeral, my ex sat me down and told me he wanted a divorce because I gained too much weight and ‘gave up on my appearance’ during/directly following treatment and there was a hot skinny girl 15 years younger that he wanted to date. I had a panic attack because of it and he left me like that to go hang out with friends and came home a few hours later drunk and asking for sex.
An old man that picked me up when I was walking keep touching me where I didn't want to be touched and threated to not take me home. I was 21. And my dad car had broke down walk to town to buy diapers. And got tried of walking cause it was a long way. I had a knife and whipped and told him to let me out of his truck and he almost ran over my feet. I'll never forget the sinking feeling I got when he said he wasn't going to take me home. And I know it was stupid I was just tired I'd walked miles. I just wanted to get home. It was scary. Please be careful if you walk places.
Assaulted me.
At a summer camp quite a while ago
man: are you a virgin?
me: I’m not even 15 ofc I’m a virgin
man: are you sure you don’t want it otherwise?
Then I lied and said that I could see my counselor looking for me. The girl I ran up to wasn’t my counselor, but I explained my situation and she told the man I had to go now.
The thing is it was a all girls summer camp. The counselors were girls, the campers were girls, and the rec leaders were girls. The only man was who ran the camp, but it wasn’t him. Later I asked my counselor who the fork that was, and she told me I was too young to know.
I was like 10 at the time I am scarred.
I still don’t believe all men are bad, but that one was.
I found it odd that last night’s diary topic, consent, was suddenly the theme of conversation at the dinner table. Did “yes” mean “no?” Could “no” mean “yes?” Did my mother mind if my stepfather took the butter dish? “Yes,” Mom said. My stepfather suffered a moment of make-believe confusion and declined to grab the butter dish that was within easy reach. “Do you mean ‘yes,’ yes, or yes, ‘no?’” he asked her, as I observed from the other side of the table. Mom nodded. He took the butter. Then, to offer a full explanation that wasn’t asked for, he said “It’s hard to tell! You could mean that it’s not okay, or could mean that it is! You know...” After my years of living in the house, I’d seen years’ worth of salt shaker, serving bowl and side-dish passings across the table during meals with not one instance of confusion over what was meant by the answer to “Please pass the peas.”
Therefore, I knew what my stepfather was saying and the message he was sending. I knew what scenes I had jotted out in a notebook I shared with no one while hunched over in bed, alone in my room, the night before. The scenario I wrote out was explicitly sexual, consent being at the crux of the action, and the “yes” given by one persona described in my diary, required clarification.
I knew another night’s exchanges had been similar, in that Mom asserted her right not to have to justify herself to a no-account person such as myself for asking her why she had not gotten new car tires or gone upstairs earlier when she wanted to get her book. As my private notebook scribblings from the night before Mom’s utterances documented, I myself had noticed the amount of justifications and motives I was regularly prompted to supply and believed I shouldn’t have to take such pains to explain myself for mundane, inconsequential choices such as which garbage can I directed myself to when I threw away a used tissue.
I also knew what my mother was saying and the message she was sending. She was reading my diary. My stepfather was also reading my diary, finding sexual content and continuing to read it. News travels fast, because it wasn’t long before playacted versions of the “yes/no” misunderstanding were being re-enacted by my co-workers when I was in the room. Then haughty attitudes were assumed and excused with the pretext that no one owed me an explanation.
Looking back it seems obvious to me that text messages, cell phone photos and possibly videos were being passed around to communicate the contents of my diaries and the themes that could be used most effectively to harass me, but no technology was really required. Word-of-mouth has been perpetually instrumental to emerging artists, struggling businesses and chain letters. With me, it was used to show me how my explicit, private diaries had been stolen and effectively published, while stripping me of all agency in the process. Who wants to tell me why they collaborated with it?
It is heartbreaking to hear all of this. I am so sorry to all of the women who had to experience this sort of stuff. We are here for you.
It is heartbreaking to hear all of this. I am so sorry to all of the women who had to experience this sort of stuff. We are here for you.
