Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Some Thoughts on Recent Headlines.


This is a micro poem by Nayyirah Waheed. I've mentioned her before, and her work is fantastic. But anyway, this poem comes to mind often these days, as each and every day seems to bring forth more women talking about men who have assaulted or harassed them.

I am tired. I am tired of seeing and hearing about sexual assault every time I swipe over to the news screen on my phone. I am tired of it being in my face all day every day.

I want to stop having to hear about and read about the horrible situations that these women have gone through and continue to endure all the time.

But it's not that I want to silence these women who speak up so bravely in a culture where it could cost them respect, their jobs, their sanity, but most definitely costs them their privacy in a matter that is highly personal and surely painful. No, I'm proud of those who have the courage to expose their tormentors.

What I want is for this shit to stop happening. I want to stop hearing about it not because women continue to be too afraid to come forward, but because creepy men stop pulling stupid shit like this.

It breaks my heart. I'm so tired of creepy men doing creepy shit. Just be a decent fucking human. Is that really so hard to do? How about you only make sexual advances toward people your own age? And whom you aren't a work authority figure over? And how about, if the person you make advances toward seems to not be into it, how about you leave them the fuck alone and maybe even apologize for having misread that. Yeah, that might be awkward, but like...it's better than just continuing to bark up that tree, right?

Like, is it really so hard to not be a creep? Because I really feel like it isn't. Especially when I consider the large number of non-creepy humans I know personally.

I just want everybody to collectively get their shit together about consent and stop doing things that create victims who then come forward and make the shady stuff public. Just STOP DOING THE THINGS. And we'll all be better off for it.

And I know that I will definitely be less tired.

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