Ride the train, they said…

Looking for the light at the end of the tunnel...

I love Facebook sometimes. It might be full of a certain level of crazy, but it’s also full of some inspiration and some fun.

Except…

Except…

Someone shared a piece that a guy wrote. The piece was all about how he traveled across the country using the train for only $213. Awesome deal. So impressed.

I’m not sure he included the cost of his meals in it. And I didn’t see any mention of the lack of showers for those four days.

But most importantly – it was written by a guy.

Wait, hear me out.

This fit right into a thought I had last night. It’s all connected.

See, someone’s car got broken into. The criminal who broke into the car stole some stuff…and a gun.

I began by thinking, geez, what kind of idiot leaves a gun in their car?

Woah, I told myself. I was victim blaming. And I was. But that’s as far as that went. When it came down to it, I blamed the criminal who stole the gun. Yeah, maybe a gun shouldn’t have been in a car, but regardless, the criminal who stole the gun made the choice to break the law, to break into the car, and to steal the item. It was the criminal’s fault.

Following me so far, right?

Okay, but if that had been a woman being raped, how many people would have said, “Yes, it was the criminal’s fault for raping her, but she shouldn’t have been [fill in the blank here].”

It wouldn’t come up in court that the gun was “asking” to be stolen.

It wouldn’t matter in court that the gun “shouldn’t have been there.”

It wouldn’t come up in court that the gun “was too tempting.”

It wouldn’t come up in court that the criminal “couldn’t help himself.”

The quality of locks and the alarm on the car wouldn’t be presented as evidence to mitigate the seriously of the theft.

Have I lost you yet?

I hope not.

Because here’s the connection: if I rode the train the way that guy did, just buying a cheap ticket and sitting and sleeping in a general shared compartment without being in my own sleeper with a lock on the door. If I did that, and if I got sexually assaulted or raped, someone – or a lot of someones – would cry out that it was my fault. Why had I slept on the train? Why wasn’t someone watching over me? Why had I dressed in a way that allowed someone to rape me?

See, I think that I have the right to ride that train in peace. I have the right to take the same trip the guy took. I have the right to do that, and the right to feel safe doing it. But I don’t feel that way, and I’m betting I’m not the only woman out there who would not feel safe. And part of that lack of safety is knowing that, if anything happened, and if it happened to make it to court, I would be put on the stand and questioned. I would be accused. I would be just as guilty simply because I had existed in the same space and time as the criminal.

When it comes to a gun sitting in a car, we don’t blame the owner of the gun or of the car. We blame the criminal. We put the criminal on trial. That’s what we should be doing. Putting the criminal on trial.

The power of the yoga pants

Joke? Or real? You decide!

Lately there have been more and more blogs and other pieces that come out, denouncing women for wearing yoga pants in public.  I mean – yoga pants!  They’re clearly just a small step away from the devil’s doorbell!

But, seriously, because of all the noise, I decided that I should go ahead and wear my yoga pants out in public.

And now, after wearing yoga pants in public, I finally understand why men feel the need to rape women.

The power trip!

Knowing that I’m forcing my will on an unwilling person – making a man look at me (against his will, of course, because wearing a pair of yoga pants forces a man to have a wandering eye)…the power!  The trip! The sexual content!

Really, I had no urge to do it before, but now that yoga pants are considered so evil, I just want to wear them every day.

Wait, you say.  That’s not true.  Men aren’t *forced* to ogle women, even if they are wearing pants that cling.  Men don’t *need* to rape women.  This is clearly a false analogy.  Rape and yoga pants aren’t the same thing.

You’re right.

I totally agree.

It’s absolutely ridiculous that the ‘news’ is filled with blogs about the evils of yoga pants, yet rape takes a back seat.  Just recently, Houston decided to go ahead and look through a backlog of 30 YEARS! of untested rape kits and found 850 DNA matches.  850.  And that's just in Houston.  Seriously, wtf, world?  Why are we focusing on the evils of yoga pants when we should be focusing on serial rapists? 

So, me, I’m going to keep wearing my yoga pants in public, but, somehow, I’m also going to restrain myself and avoid raping people.  It’s amazing how that’s possible, but it is.

Mani/pedi rape kit…

Nail Polish And Manicure Set by hyena reality via freedigitialphotos.net

Yeah, I finally decided I was going to weigh in on the nail polish thing.  I was standing on the sidelines on this one, but I’m finally going for it.

Just a few points I wanted to make:

1. Not all rape victims are female.  Many men aren’t into wearing nail polish.  To be fair, there are also plenty of women who don’t like nail polish.  Why assume that women will want to add something to their beauty routine?

2. The nail polish is invented by men, which to some people seems to further perpetuate the victim-blaming that often occurs along with rape and sexual assault.  Guys are creating a tool for women to stop rapists as opposed to simply stopping men from raping.  This “tool” makes it feel much more like women are responsible for what happens to them if they are attacked.  “Well, you’re responsible if someone drugs you because you didn’t check your drink.”  Wait, what?  We have to be on the offensive and the defensive at all times? 

3. It can be seen as just another tool for women to use to defend themselves, like carrying mace, a taser, or even a gun.  But the thing is – those are weapons, meant to be used to fight back against a crime being committed, not something that women have to do in order to prevent a crime.

4. And, no, rape is not like putting a bike lock on your bike.  Why not?  We shouldn’t have to assume that our bodies require 24/7 protection!  Yes, stealing a bike is wrong, but rape is rape, asshole!  If you’re looking at crimes within a ranking (and, yes, we do rank the seriousness of crimes, hence the whole levels of misdemeanors and felonies and the ranges of punishments), then rape is a whole lot further along that spectrum than taking a bicycle!  There’s a sex offender registry, but I don’t recall seeing a bike theft registry. 

5. No one is saying that people (men and women) shouldn’t take precautions when it comes to crime.  But when you claim that a failure to take extra precautions (and dipping your nail into every drink that you drink in public is definitely an extra precaution) means that the person “deserved it” is beyond broken.  It doesn’t just happen with rape.  I just saw on my Facebook feed where a woman accused another woman of “asking for it” because someone grabbed her purse out of her shopping cart.  But I find it hard to find anyone on my feed blaming a man for being mugged, even if he was standing drunk at an ATM waving his wad of cash around.

6. Yeah, well, I don’t have a six.  But I’m guessing other people do.  Feel free to share yours in the comments below.  Just remember that I’m a crazy ass feminist, and this is my blog.  This is not a democracy.  So be a douche, and get deleted!