A
few weeks ago I was in walking around downtown San Francisco with my two
friends. We had just finished an important exam within our second year of our
Ph.D. program and decided it would be a great idea to celebrate! It was a
rather chilly night, so the three of us decided that jeans and a leather jacket
would be the perfect outfit, although we all joked about how silly it was that
we were all matching. As we walked down the stairs, we heard a young man
scream, “Oh, the sluts are leaving!” Surprise hit me first then later came anger.
I was confused because I was living in my skin and engaging in conversation
with my friends. His remarks shifted my focus away from the way in which I view
my goals, my humor, my relationships, and myself and altered my perspective to
my gender. His comment was all of five words but they were a striking reminder
that I am a woman. His words signaled to me that I am less than, I am a sexual
object and that I am not safe, I do not have a voice; I am what he calls me. He
reduced me to a sexualized object that is walking in the street late at night. How
does a woman react? Does she stay silent and accept her verbal harassment
knowing that her safety may also be at jeopardy? Does she internalize these
comments, and if she does, what does she adjust?
This
event picked at me for days because it was more than just his words that struck
me and left me feeling off keel. His words are a mere reflection of society and
how our culture functions. Hell, many people just told me to forget about it
and made claims that I should minimize the situation and excuse his actions.
But the real issue is that fact that this happens, a lot. And to be frank, I
can’t say that I’ve only heard it from men. Women have been known to slut shame
just as much and police other women for their dress, their words, their
sexuality, and their behavior. Its quite astonishing how pervasive women’s
expected actions are throughout both genders and how, although knowing it
limits us, we help set and maintain boundaries for women. The most upsetting
part about the fact that society functions this way to facilitate in the
moderation of women’s actions is that it is just another way in which
oppression is further perpetuated.
As
Marilyn Frye states in her piece “Oppression,” we “participate in our own
erasure.” But this is done not innocently; this includes systematic barriers
that quickly downward spiral. “If we comply, (act in accordance), we signal our
docility (ready to accept control or instruction) and our acquiescence (accepting
something reluctantly but without protest) in our situation,” We become toys
that are ready to accept whatever is being instructed and reluctantly without
protest. Yet, if we do not comply in this woman-oppressed world, we are seen as
“difficult.” Again, further proving that woman must obviously be oppressed if
we cannot take control of things ourselves and must wait for instruction
reluctantly. If one dresses one way, one is subject to the assumption that one
is advertising ones sexual availability; if one dresses another way, one
appears to “not care about oneself” or to be “unfeminine.” We cannot act angry
or conduct ourselves with “strong language” (which is seen as not ladylike), we
cannot act bitter, and this “Has been known to result in rape, arrest, beating
and murder.” So we can conform into invisibility, again, participate in our
erasure and die a dead soul or we can try to break these bias stances and risk
our death.
Marilyn
persuades her theory onto me, that “something pressed is something caught
between or among forces and barriers which are so related to each other that
jointly they restrain, restrict or prevent the thing’s motion or mobility.
Mold. Immobilize. Reduce.” Women are
restrained from expressing natural emotions such as anger, are stuck complying
to ways reluctantly, are categorized regardless of their actions and these categorizations
immobilize women further. One thing that isn’t immobile is the participation of
our own erasure.
- Written by Sevan Makhoulian
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