Saturday, October 21, 2017

My Vague-ish #MeToo Response

Lots of little things have happened and I legitimately did not write anything longer than an email, paid or unpaid, in the better part of a month. now I am back into it though, churning out content on city-cost and gearing up for NaNoWriMo. This year, for the first time ever, I am using actual historical figures instead of people I make up. It's essentially science-history-fan-fiction and I am excited about starting this bizarre journey. Let's see where November takes us!

In the meantime, the #MeToo thing happened, and I found it awe-inspiring to see so many people coming out of the woodwork and sharing stories, bringing light to the fact that these things are a problem and far too frequent occurrence, but I also think it's hard to find a grown woman who has never been sexually harassed or never had an experience that anyone else might classify as harassment even if the would-be victim may not see it that way.
That said, shit has gone down in my life by more hands than I want to count, and while it sucks that those thing happened, and I wouldn't wish them on people, I'm still alive, and that's pretty awesome.

But when I shared my #MeToo tweet, it was only that, the hashtag, because there are stories, plural, more horrific than the asshole on the train in Nagoya who shoved his hand onto my upper thigh while feigning sleep and did not move it or "wake up"even when I shoved a cold soda can on top of his hand and pushed down with significant weight. A woman sitting across from me looked at me with disgust, which I still don't need to understand. The best thing that happened was that I got to steal her seat when she left and Mr. Grabby McAsshole was left alone. I stopped exploring Nagoya as much after that, staying in my little mountain town where no one tried to touch me. I took a sharpie with me so the next time something like that happened, I could draw on the face of the fucker, telling all the world what a dickhead he was. I never had to use it, though, which is probably good because I imagine the train-cops would probably have fined me for assault and told the asshole in question that groping is totally okay and would he like to press charges to send me packing. These things are different when you're an immigrant in a politely xenophobic country.

That story alone is hard to describe in 140 characters or less. The public is not owed more of my horror stories than that.

But I do want to add, just as a side-point for other survivors of serious shit, that there is a special hellish quality to abuse at the hands of people with whom you share a family resemblance. What do you do when your mirror is a trigger, eh? Well, if you're like me, you apparently get fat and keep your hair long to distinguish the reflection from anything that might repulse you. You wear glasses even though your eyesight isn't that bad. You pledge to dye the living shit out of your hair the moment it starts going patchy gray because fuck off are you not going to look like someone who doesn't understand how to not traumatize others with their libido.

And then you swear a lot and rejoice in the fact that you found someone with whom you actually want an intimate physical relationship, and that they felt the same, and that they married you.
And despite your partner and your adorable offspring and your fancy digs (that you've hoarded into chaos), you battle depression, which isn't new and didn't start with being slightly destroyed by a person sharing a significant part of your genetic structure, but still. It didn't help.
And you move on. And you don't. And it comes back to you.
And it's been more than a decade. And it wasn't the first or last fucked up thing to occur, but to this day I can't stand anyone breathing on my neck. It brings it all back, and I have to force my mind clear of the physical sensation of revulsion.

These experiences are extremely awful and unfortunately not rare, not even in the alleged land of the free. I don't know that Japan is better. In fact, I know in a lot of ways it is more backward and strange about the progress of women's roles. But at least here I am 6,000 miles away from the only person to cause me that much trauma whom I still have to know.
That's not why I stay here, mind you. It's also got free healthcare for my kid till she's 12 and a number of jobs I can do with skills I've already acquired and without the desire to set my workplace on fire.
I cannot say the same for Linens N Things, which of course no longer exists, but when it did...man...it was not an awesome place to work.

But really the point is that finding solidarity with the MeToo thing was cathartic in a way, and I needed to share part of that. Maybe it's a weird thing, but I needed it out.

I also really thought Jim Beaver (Uncle Bobby from Supernatural) had a great response, which was to share his own story but alter the tag. I think anyone could be sexually harassed or assaulted and limiting it to women isn't necessary. Limiting perpetrators to men is also unfair.

There's also a meme going around about that scene at the end of Moana that makes basically a lot of people cry, including me, when the heroine brings the heart of Te Fiti to the island only to find that the island turned into the lava monster when its heart was stolen, so calming the lava monster, saying basically, "I see you. Your pain does not define you." allows her to get close enough to put the small stone heart back in its place and restore things to their natural order.
The meme says that the important part was the genders of those involved-- that only a woman like Moana could understand a fellow female's suffering and help them overcome. If that works for you, awesome. Good for you. Happy to hear it.
But it doesn't work for me at all. Every time shit has hit the fan with these fucked up situations in my life, it's been the men in my life I could turn to, even if it was just the fellow weird kid who happened to have the only phone number I knew at the time, or a family friend and counselor, or whatever. For me, getting help had less to do with the gender of the person and more to do with their ability to listen and attempt to help.
That's not to say that those traumatized by men must seek male assistance. Hell no. Seek the assistance that works for you, whatever that looks like, but telling me that only a woman can help heal a woman is garbage.

And honestly, in the end, you have to choose to heal yourself, and take the steps to make that happen, no matter who is around you.