DEAR ATTICUS

Dear Atticus,
I stumbled across a beat poem on sexual harassment that's currently doing the rounds on the internet and it got me reminiscing (which seems far too pretty a word for such ugly memories) about all the small and large violations that I've been subjected to in my life, and how they've inadvertently shaped the woman I've evolved into, and how that, in turn, goes toward the shaping of my own Ann-with-an-E.

In particular, and the memory that this beat poem nudged to mind took place in a movie theatre with an old man who sat beside me when I was with my 5 year old daughter and baby niece. His hand kept creeping under my buttocks as if he didn't have enough room to keep them to himself. And although I knew what was happening and felt incredibly uncomfortable and tense, social conditioning and fear of making a scene with my small girls as witnesses to something so ugly, and stupid concern that perhaps he genuinely didn't realise what he was doing, kept me silent throughout the hour and a half assault. And even though it's been 8 years, and even though I've experienced other (sometimes more blatant) forms of sexual harassment, this one haunts me, and keeps me ruminating at odd times about how I wish I had handled the situation differently.

It makes me furious to think that my daughter wanders about in a world where (some) men think that it's ok (even flattering) to, at any given moment, whenever the mood takes them, take her out of her brilliant mind, and trap her with her own body, making her lovely form nothing but sexual parts for their gratification, alienating her body from her mind, and making them at odds with each other.  The white cold rage that threatens to consume me when I recall that she has already experienced this, far too early, and will, no doubt continue to throughout her life fills me with dread and fear. I can only hope that I tended well enough to her wounds at the time, that they won't leave scars that run too deep.  Raising a girl as a broken woman is terrifying .  Raising boys who will become men is equally so.  Again, I can only hope that I'm doing enough to prevent the sort of mindless misogyny (and I do believe that a lot of misogynists actually believe that they love women) that causes men to treat women with such contempt.

Sometimes it's hard to keep in mind that fear makes for pitiful parenting.  Luckily, there is an antidote: hope.

Here's to hopefully raising beautiful, feminist sons, with a genuine love and deep respect for women (that goes far beyond the whole "Happy wife, happy life" bullshit)

Love, 
Marilla