Not up for discussion

I was talking to a friend’s friends today at lunch. One of them was complaining about how women have all the power when it comes to sexual assault. How women can make false claims as they please and ruin a guy’s life…

I was fuming.

He brought up the example of one girl who made a false sexual assault claim that temporarily tainted the guy’s reputation. What he left out was the daily sexual assaults that girls from our school go through. He left out how often girls cry in bathroom stalls and get blamed, mocked, ad stared at if they come out with their sexual assault story. He meant to leave out the one girl who got her ass slapped while his friends were laughing, making her powerful stance seem like an act. He left out the girl who was told she was “asking for it” by OTHER GIRLS when she wore shorts and a guy decided to comment on her ass. He left out the times ninth graders would make comments about me, saying things along the lines of “I wish you wore thongs more often” and “I like your bra today, sweetheart”.

He pities the men that have to deal with false claims and get their lives ruined. He thinks that every girl that accuses a guy of sexual assault gets justice, that every guy gets jail time. That every girl TELLS PEOPLE when they get sexually assaulted.

I wanted to spit it in his face.

My brother sexually assaulted me. And there’s nothing I, or anyone, can do about it. No one is helping me. Everyone wants to forget about it. But I cannot.

The Me Too mouvement has given us a platform, a voice. It has given us women the space to tell our stories and bring awareness to behavioural misconduct.

But it has not given us the confidence to enter a man’s house alone. Or walk alone at night. Or walk around braless in front of our uncles. Or, in my case, brother.

And that’s why it’s far from over.