I've been on retreat.
I've been to the UK.
I've been the music director for an amazing production of Little Shop of Horrors.
I've run an event attended by 1000+ people.
I've been busy.
In those three months I've also spent a lot of time being embarrassed by the actions of our President.
I joined Twitter to read and shudder at the off-the-cuff, grammatically-inept and lexically-challenged rantings of our President. (This might have been a mistake -- Twitter kicks my spiritual peace right in the ass.)
I've written to The White House, Senators and Congresspersons, in union with those who love our Mother Earth (and who are much smarter than I am) and who know that climate change is real.
I've had the wind taken out of my sails, and wondered at the futility of fighting back against an administration whose policies and attitude toward others -- individuals, countries, races, ethnicities and genders -- is incompatible to all that I hold true, dear, and important, and yet barrels forward with seemingly little concern for the consequences of words and actions. (Our President could have used a few life lessons from my parents. Although I often ignore my mom's sweet soft advice that echoes in my head to "think before I speak,"-- sorry, mom -- my dad's ceaseless "actions have consequences" speeches boom in my mind every day. Every single day.)
In other words, I haven't been much of a warrior. I even considered deleting this blog. Gasp.
But then a friend (OK, it was my sister) sent me a screenshot of our State Representative's Facebook post and commentary on the most recent London terrorist attack, as she knew that Clay and I had just walked those bridges in London eight weeks ago, and that after watching news coverage, Clay realized that one of the pubs involved was a pub where we had stopped for a pint. While the Representative's "this is why you carry" and "THIS IS WHY I FIGHT FOR YOUR GUN RIGHTS" comments almost made me break my self-imposed exile from commenting on his posts, I was stopped -- and shocked -- by one of his more recent posts. He shared this (one of his 25 Facebook posts on Monday, but I'm not judging. Ok, yes, I am.):
and I sort of lost my mind and wrote this, even though I knew better. Even though Clay (who agrees with me, bless his little liberal-leaning heart) warned me of what would happen:
This letter does nothing but further the culture of rape by placing responsibility firmly on the rape victim. While I love kick-ass women who have been well-trained to take down an attacker, your suggestion of "learning how not to be a victim" is a faulty and short-sighted solution. Rape victims include children, older women, disabled women, mentally challenged women -- women for whom self-defense classes are a non-starter. And, if your definition of avoiding victimization is to carry a gun, you know that there are millions of women like me for whom this could never be an option. Please don't add "if only she'd taken a self-defense class" and "if only she'd had a gun" to the already amazingly long list of rape excuses like "she was asking for it".
I thought that was pretty peaceful, thoughful, etc., etc., etc.
Representative Lucas responded:
Seriously? Furthering the culture of rape??? That's about as low as you can go right there, Georgiann! There is no such thing as 100% guarantee to not have bad or horrible things happen to you, but to completely ignore the vast amount of training that is out there that teaches women things to look for so that they don't put themselves in the position of becoming victimized is foolish. Why wouldn't someone want to mitigate and try to prevent a horrible tragedy such as this?
I really don't think he understood what I was saying. I'm wondering if he read past the first sentence? And then he invited his friends to respond to me, which they did. Ouch. And to which I responded:
Jim Lucas, first off, I certainly didn't mean to offend you with that term -- you know that's not how I roll. But rape culture is a term we live with in today's America. It's on television, in movies, at fraternity parties -- the culture that normalizes sexual violence. It's the culture that says "boys will be boys with boyish urges" and puts the onus on rape victims. That was my point. It's a harsh term. But when 1 in 5 women in this country are victims of sexual violence, I don't think it's a term I/we can back away from. And actually, I thought I was going high, in defense of women who cannot or would not participate in classes like Tamara teaches (I know and love lots of women who have taken her classes -- as a feminist, I would never tell another woman she shouldn't take the classes.) I understand that you're calling for fairness in the press --a "let's look at another side of the story" call. I think that there is a third (and I should have added "more important") side -- the side that says let's teach boys and men not to use and abuse women in sexually violent ways. The side that says no woman is asking for rape, despite how she looks, acts, dresses or how drunk she is. I'm pretty sure we can agree on that one. Peace.
He didn't respond to that. His friends did. Ouch again. But several of my real-life friends came to my defense (even if they don't agree with me, it was kind of them to do so).
But you know what? He didn't make me cry this time. (He's made me cry before, like the time he turned his back on me in public, Amish-shunning style, after I wrote an opinion piece in our local paper questioning his upcoming legislation that would relax gun laws.) I didn't cry, even when his friends called me ignorant. Even when one said I failed at reading comprehension. Even when one assumed I had never been the victim of sexual violence. Even when he invited his friends to take me to a self-defense/shooting class and he would pay my tuition.
Because I know that I am right.
Representative Lucas (I don't know why I'm addressing him, as I am fairly certain he will never visit this blog, but anyway...), we cannot blame rape victims for their lack of awareness, their inability to defend themselves and their failure to carry a weapon. Your letter to The Star implies that you can. Your pattern of blame in response to tragedy implies that you will. I am asking you to stop compounding tragedy by blaming victims.
And hey. Thanks for reminding me that I need to keep writing this blog.
Peace, my friends.
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