Guest Feature – “The #YesAllWomen Movement”

Guest Feature Post by Amelia Eskenazi and Emma Troughton, high school students from Indiana

In the United States, society has evolved into one of toxicity through its relentless enforcement of artificially constructed gender norms — to the extent at which massacres rooted in misogyny and sexism ensue.

Women are objectified in many different aspects. We are forced to oblige to strict school dress codes to supposedly “avoid distracting our male peers while they learn.” These dress codes equate bare skin to sexual implications, perpetuating the hyper-sexualization of women and suggesting that men are inherently untamable in the face of what they deem to be an attractive woman.

Women are constantly in danger of sexual assault and harassment, which is only made worse by the widely held mindset that it is a woman’s responsibility to not “provoke” men.

In other words, it is believed that if a man is “provoked” by a woman’s “suggestive” clothing choices, she is “asking for it” as she should understand that this behavior is “male nature.”

Also, a major point of sexism in society is the pay gap between males and females. In a woman’s lifetime, it is estimated that she will have earned 33% less than that of her males coworkers.

All of these accounts of sexism, however, only make up a small portion of seemingly infinite accounts of sexism in society. The list goes on and on. Having considered all of this, it is understandable that many people (men and women but mostly women) have banned together to oppose this injustice.

As a response to a recent massacre that was rooted in misogyny and sexism, a feminist campaign has garnered many followers all over social media. Many of the people participating in said campaign identify as feminists; they support the idea that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. When people identify as feminists, though, often times they are labeled as extremists, to the point of being shamed in their attempt to fight for equal rights.

And here lies a very significant bout of sexism — the fact that people perceive the idea that women and men should be equal as extreme, absurd, and even dangerous. It is important to note that not all men are sexist, seeing as this is typically how men react to such movements.

 

But, the point of the movement is to relay to people the reality that all women – hence #YesAllWomen – experience sexism at some point in their lives.

Don’t believe me?

Ask any woman in the nation — the world really. Women, since infancy, are told that we need a man in order to be successful.

We’re subjects of stereotypical jokes that oftentimes refer to sandwich preparation and baby rearing, suggesting these to be all we are capable of. There has never been a female president. Women from ages 15 – 44 are more likely to be raped than to have cancer yet cancer is the leading cause of death in this age group. This existence of misogyny and sexism in cultures worldwide has gone too far.

That is why the hashtag #YesAllWomen is important. It is a movement towards equality of the sexes. It is a movement that includes all women. And it is very disappointing to see the defensiveness of many males towards this issue.

A male teacher of ours said, “Getting angry at women for pointing these things out is like getting mad at your doctor when she tells you you’re sick. It serves no purpose other than to allow you to avoid facing an uncomfortable reality. As a man who makes an effort to be biased towards compassion whenever possible, it saddens me to see so many be so dismissive of what I think was a brilliant, thought-provoking use of social media.”

Another female teacher said, “I have pretended I only speak German and can’t understand what a man is saying to me on the street. I have ignored many. I have been scared. I have hoped men would think I was a man. In all of these situations, the man looms as a possible threat. We imagine the action being done to us, and passively we participate even in our imagination.”

“In my imagination, I never win the fight. I only imagine one action: I make one last phone call.” “Maybe I’m just replaying the scene from every movie when the dying, raped woman calls her husband one last time, the killer’s footsteps clomping up the stairs toward her room a second time. The husband gets revenge. The husband is thrust into the violence and must kill the killer. Violence, we seem to be saying, belongs to men. I have thought a man was going to hurt me. I had 911 on my phone ready to dial. Some have had to dial. I did not. The damage this fear does to a person is astounding and deep. Margaret Atwood said so correctly, as she often does, that men fear women will laugh at them and women fear men will kill them. If only I could laugh at that.”

Along with these two teachers, we also asked many of our friends, classmates, and teachers to explain to us why the movement of #YesAllWomen spoke to them. A few of their responses:  

#YesAllWomen because within my friend group, according to statistics, it is projected that at least two of us will have been victimized by sexual abuse by the time of graduation.

 #YesAllWomen because women are not just entities that can be objectified.  

#YesAllWomen because we shouldn’t have to anticipate harassment and assault. Gender does not justify mistreatment.

#YesAllWomen because they never asked my rapist what he was wearing.

#YesAllWomen because people assume that I wear makeup to please someone other than myself.

#YesAllWomen because we are more than just sexual objects. Odds of someone being attacked by a shark: 1 in 3,748,067. Odds of a women being raped: 1 in 6. However, being afraid of sharks is rational, but being cautious of men is seen as misandry?

#YesAllWomen because my shoulders should not be more important than my achievements.