I was raped in my mid 20s. It was a guy I had rejected on many occasions and called a frat boy who objectified alt girls.
He waited until I was so drunk I couldn’t walk, at a bar. I fell down in the parking lot, and had scraped my legs, bleeding. He put me in his truck and took
Honestly at this point in my life I think much less about the rape, but much more about how men as a whole feel unsafe. Six men let someone rape a woman because they either didn't care, didn't want to get involved or standing up for the right thing is uncomfortable.
There are at least six men in this story who could have stopped a rape and chose not to.
After this, his friend would never look me in the eye, I'd see him at bars, friends houses and he'd look straight down.
And he could have at any point told his friend that this wasn't okay. But he didn't. And then when this guy brought me to his house there were at least five men there and again, no one stopped him from bringing a woman into his room, with bloody legs and couldn't walk on my own.
I heard the jokes. I saw the way he talked about women. I noticed how he ignored boundaries, but I convinced myself it wasn't my business. Then someone was hurt, and suddenly everyone asked how nobody saw it coming. Sometimes we don't fail victims because we didn't know we fail
I taught my daughter to be careful with strangers, to call me when she feels unsafe, and to never walk alone at night. But I wonder why I never taught my son the same lesson from the other side: never become someone's reason to be afraid. We spend years teaching girls how to
He was my friend, so I defended him without knowing the truth. I called her a liar because believing her meant questioning someone I trusted. That is the ugly side of loyalty: sometimes people protect friendships so desperately that they forget justice exists. A friend who
We tell women to dress differently, walk differently, speak differently, and live smaller lives so that men won't hurt them. But what happens when all our rules for women still fail? Maybe the problem isn't that women aren't careful enough. Maybe we've spent too much time