#11 – Cheer up, love

‘Why so touchy’ they ask? ‘I was only joking’ they sneer.

What is it really like to be a woman? In the majority of contexts throughout human history, women have been repressed, their intelligence and skills suppressed, their fires extinguished.

We are rising up, and it is about damn time. There has never been a time, in my opinion, better than the one we are living in to be a woman. However, this comes from my perspective as an Eastern European, white woman, with a stable income and stable housing, in the Western part of England, in the United Kingdom. I speak not for all women, but we do exist on a spectrum and that spectrum, I am part of. I may have my privileges, but I also hold the title of ‘woman’ and in this post, I’ll bet, irrespective of my position, culture or geographical region in the world – other women will relate. I do include trans women too. Welcome to the club ladies. We will stand with you through this bullshit.

Cheer up, love!

No. What is it that is affecting you adversely from my neutral expression? Should I smile to be pretty, because I am serving you a beer, and a barmaid (shit word) should act the part? What is this part? Who created this part? And when did I agree to play it? I remember no such event.
We are not here to make you feel better, or to reaffirm your world view of what a woman should be because a woman can be whatever she wants to be. She is not here to perform for you, she is here to live for herself.

Lol, only joking, I’ve got a crude sense of humour 😉

Weaving in the topic of sex where it has no business, talking about my ‘tits’, gesturing with your fingers in an upwards digitally-penatrative motion whilst laughing…this is not humour. If you find it funny, it is because you have not yet evolved sufficiently.

I also don’t have the energy to educate you, and yet, on me (and us) does this responsibility fall.

But we are tired. Please, please learn for yourselves. Speak to your mothers, sisters and friends. Read. Ask and, importantly, listen.

Consent

There are things in this world that are yours to take. Knowledge – that’s one; through reading some literature, you can expand your vocubulary, understanding of the world and emotional intelligence. Air – it is yours and mine to breathe.

Someone’s dignity, power, life and body, on the other hand, are not. It is the simplest thing and yet I remain astounded at how difficult a concept it seems to be for some to grasp.

When she is barely conscious, you keep your hands, mouth and dick to yourself. When she uses closed-off body-language to your advances, you stop, you see and you accept what you are seeing.

When she outright says no, you stop immediately. You don’t linger. You don’t convince, bargain or beg. You back the fuck off. When she says stop, you do the same thing. As Iliza Shlesinger said, ‘It took me ten years of dating to learn that a boner isn’t a medical condition’.

Funny, isn’t it? The sad part of this joke is that the implication is clear. It took her, as it has taken many of us, years to understand that refraining from providing you with the sexual gratification you want…will not kill you. We’ve all been aroused, ladies, gents, non-binary alike. No one has, or will, die from the inability to complete the sexual act their downstairs region wants.

Being a woman is a beautiful thing.

I cannot imagine a life in which I am anything but who I am. Being a woman, for me, is a privilege, an honour, a joy and a responsibility. It is also, through years of ancestral inheritance, a burden…but it is not a burden we have created for ourselves and thus, it is both foreign, yet ours.

The older I get, the more I scan back through my life with a growing and painful clarity. The below are just my experiences, mind. For real though…none of them are OK, and I know that every woman on this Earth can, and will relate.

The man who followed me at midnight for ten whole minutes, as I walked home from my pub shift at age 20. It was an autumn month, I had my bomber jacket with the hood up and my Blackberry held tightly at my chest, frantically typing to a friend to tell him where I am, that there is someone behind me, and to call the police if I don’t write again in the next five minutes.

This man did not touch me. He did not speak a word to me but he had total power. He was tall, I am not. He was strong(er) than me. He was daring, I was scared. He walked so close to me, I felt his body on mine. I heard his breath through my hood.

As I crossed the road, my house finally in view, he just changed direction and left.

That’s what being a woman can feel like.

The boy who lingered in the bedroom of not one, but two different friends’ houses at uni, after I had had a drink and smoked a little bit of weed and had gone to rest. The boy who stood over my bed as I tried so hard to calm my racing head, my restless body, my intoxicated self whilst all the while pretending to be asleep.

The boy who eventually would not leave me be with his pervasive presence to the point where all I felt I could do, in order to get the sleep I desperately needed, was to have sex with him first.

That’s what being a woman can feel like.

The 24 year-old boyfriend to my 16-year-old self who commented on my breasts to my best friend, in a jokey text message. How 16-year-old me and my best friend giggled with young and inexperienced joy, and the slightest budding sense of female apprehension.

That same boyfriend who initiated no conversation nor sought any confirmation before taking my virginity. Without a condom.

The same boyfriend who walked into the bathroom when I was brushing my teeth after a gig, and asked for sex in the most cold, mechanical manner, out of earshot of his friend sleeping in his room.

That’s what being a woman can feel like.

The boy who makes you feel guilty because he cannot maintain an errection with a condom.

The guy who uses an old, expired condom with you and shares none of the fear or responsibility when it splits. The guy who doesn’t pay for your morning after pill, or think about how taking such a thing may affect you (psychologically and biologically). The guy who doesn’t even come to the pharmacy.

The men who whistle at you, and comment on your body as you walk past, making you more painfully aware of yourself than you had been that whole day. The comments that follow you as you walk, thinking what you could possibily use as a weapon if they approach you, as there is no one around. The jokes they make at your cold demeanour in ignoring their crude advances, much to the effect of the ‘Cheer up, love’ bullshit mentioned above.

The creepy coke dealer who got on the back of a bus with me after a rave, threw rubbish at the sleeping homeless man next to me, and cussed me for asking him to stop and saying that’s mean. ‘Mean’, he laughed, and asked how old I was. When he heard 19, he felt the need to comment on how tight my p*ssy probably is, smiling widely, two gold teeth sparkling.

The way you have to cross the street when you’re walking home alone, in the dark.

That’s what being a woman can feel like.

Irrespective of this, I have grown up amongst strong women. Women who have survived sexual and domestic abuse, women who have hustled and got to where they are by themselves. I now work in the field of sexual violence and I work with everyone, but this post, this post right here – this is purely and solely about women.

After the last month, where a man I met online (and really liked) sexually touched me in public (when he was not invited to) and also hesitated to stop (when I said no), in conjunction with the latest online boy inquiring, twice, about sending a dick pic (and cloaking it in his excuse of his ‘dry humour’), I’ve had enough.

Ladies – keep fighting. Don’t be silent. Don’t be ashamed to say what you want and especially, what you don’t want. If you’re scared, get out when you can. Help exists, believe me. We can, and have survived, shitloads. I’ve seen it hundreds of times first hand therefore, I know it to be true.
Don’t settle, or compromise. Keep rising up, and take no bullshit.

Gentlemen – please explore the semantics of, and live up to, that title.

Peace.