#YesAllWomen (or This Is Why This Hashtag Is Important)

After the shooting at UCSB the hashtag #yesallwomen starting popping up on twitter and Facebook. The hashtag started in response to men saying that not all men act the way that the gunman in the shooting acted (feeling like women owed him sex and that they had no right to reject him). But the #yesallwomen movement started because even if very few men act that way, all women have encountered a man who treated them horribly.

I’ve seen posts over the last few days with people sharing their stories about how they were raped or assaulted. I’m one of the lucky people. I’ve never been hurt, at least not too badly.

In college, a guy on my campus tried to grab at me. I was lucky that he was very drunk and I was able to fight him off by hitting him with my shoes. I’ve been on dates where guys think that I owe them sex because I agreed to go out with them. I’ve had guys tell me that if they did anything to me it couldn’t be rape because nobody would ever want to rape a fat girl. I’ve been groped and grabbed more times than I can count.

One incident sticks out in my mind. It was a few years ago at one of the LA Actor Tweetups. Those events are usually fun hangouts and catchups for me. I get to see people who I haven’t seen in a while and meet new like-minded people. But at this one particular tweetup I was standing in a corner talking to a friend of mine (I think we were talking about the SAG-AFTRA merger which hadn’t happened at that time). While we were in the middle of the conversation, a guy walks up to us and grabs my breast. Then he takes his other hand to introduce himself. I smacked his hand away and he said that he didn’t mean anything by grabbing me. He just wanted to get a better look at my name tag. Needless to say, my friend and I walked away but the groper left the event before I could report him to the organizers.

It’s sad that we live in a world where this sort of behavior is expected. It’s sad that women are supposed to be responsible for how men think of them. If you wear something short or tight and you get raped, you were asking for it. I remember when I was at summer camp when I was 12 or 13 and an older female camper was assaulted by a male camper. Our cabin counselors talked to all the girls in my cabin that night and said that the girl should have never walked with the boy by herself. We were all told to stay with a buddy no matter what.

Just because you walk alone with someone does not mean that you are consenting to anything more than walking with that person. Just because you are drunk or high does not mean that you are giving up all your rights.

I’ve always been taught to protect myself. I know how to fight back. I know never to walk alone at night (even to this day I will not walk to my car alone). I know never to let my drink out of my sight and if it has been, I know to throw it out. When I got my first apartment, I was given pepper spray as a gift.

But as women, we cannot control what men think about us or what they try to do. And I’m glad that my friends who have sons have been sharing online that they plan to educate their sons about consent (which has been missing from most boys’ upbringings in my opinion). And while most men who were not educated about consent will be good and still make sure that they have consent before doing anything, there is always the exception who doesn’t know (or doesn’t believe) that getting consent is important to them.

So if you were online over the last few days and didn’t understand the #yesallwomen hashtag or disagree with it, know that you might not be a part of the problem, but pretty much every woman you know has been a victim of it.

And that since I’ve only been called horrible names, been groped and grabbed, and had someone try to attack me that I’m one of the lucky ones. What I’ve been through is nothing compared to almost every other woman I know.

And to the women who have been brave enough to share their stories, I’m so inspired by you all. I know that it must be very difficult to share those stories with people and take the risk of being judged. But hopefully by the open conversation that you have all started more people will realize that this is a problem and there needs to be a change.

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