What a week and it’s only Thursday.
Starting with the Meghan Markle interview and with that all types of people coming out the woodwork including people legitimately questioning mental health issues. What society are we living in when an issue as delicate as this has people calling you ‘attention seeking’ and questioning whether you are actually telling the truth, asking people to ‘prove it’. Do you know how damaging a statement that is?
This interview itself bought out lots of other issues, ones in which racism came to the forefront again and an instance in which a presenter said the words ‘casual racism’. Enlighten me please and tell me in what way racism can ever be said casually..
I saw this post on Clara Amfo’s Instagram and it triggered a memory in me that I had probably buried or tried to forget and just never told anyone. I think I was about 15 and a boy in school I really liked was telling me about the comments his friends were making me about what would happen if we slept together
“If you did it in the dark or under the covers, you wouldn’t be able to see anything but her teeth“
I had practically forgotten this comment only remembering it at random times but seeing this post really triggered something in me. I remember at the time it stung but I just laughed it off
Fast forward to receiving a message like this off someone I basically don’t know.. like I’m some ‘other’ type of experience. Reflecting now both of these experiences have probably deep down affected a part of my life that I haven’t really even realised and that comment is just one of so many I have received and still do to this day.
Then the past day or two seeing the Sarah Everard case come to light, I barely have the words. For all us girls I feel sick, heartbroken and scared. Most girls if not all have an experience of being made to feel uncomfortable, harassed, touched or even followed. I wouldn’t dare go out on my own at night, and only ever when I lived in Wales walked home alone, even then still feeling slightly on edge. This isn’t a women’s problem, it’s a male issue (‘not all men’ brigade please leave why are you making it about you). They are the one’s who can’t control themselves, as women we do all we can and yet still it happens. Instead of women being taught to protect ourselves, men should be educated. It’s not women’s behaviour that has to change.
When did society get so toxic, that we can’t even feel safe doing something as simple as walking home. All the things women do – walk in well lit areas, take your headphones out etc. these are all calculated and done out of fear and seeing the trauma of other women play out.
And to think it was International Women’s Day at the beginning of the week.
This shit is heart wrenching and exhausting.
Ellen Anjali 