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Recognizing real issues that happen to actual women

We live in a world where rejection isn’t handled properly by everyone. To a person with some degree of common sense, “no” means no and “yes” means yes. Any extreme measures taken beyond that, such as violently attacking a woman or senselessly taking her life simply because she rejected your advances, exhibit signs of cowardice and a desperate need to feel dominant and entitled (to say the least).

Because of someone’s inability to properly handle rejection, one woman got her throat slashed, another was viciously assaulted, and another was killed.  I live in a world where it is safer for me to give a stranger a fake number as opposed to none at all because I could easily be a victim due to someone else’s incompetence and failure to respect my wishes.

“The things you retweet are crazy. Smh” was the response I received from a follower on Twitter after retweeting the aforementioned incidences pertaining to the lives of women being threatened solely because they exercised their right to turn down advances from men. These incidences may seem crazy; senseless; impractical, even; and that’s because they are. But we cannot make the mistake of discrediting the fact that no matter how untrue they may sound, these dreadful events actually happen to real women. To figure out the underlying magnitude of the problem we must first acknowledge the obstacles women face not as something “crazy,” but as realistic issues that need to be recognized, addressed, and resolved.

People have a tendency to overlook how challenging it is for a woman to do something as simple as walk the streets at night, especially when they are not the ones holding a pocket-sized bottle of pepper spray (or any designated sharp object) as a means of protection, or even walking the streets during the day and needing to take extra precaution as an attempt to avoid street harassment.

There isn’t enough awareness around the undesirable and unfortunate events women endure in addition to insufficient coverage of those events outside of the articles that circulate on social media. This evident lack of exposure results in people doubting that these incidents actually happen. It is easy for someone to feel a sense of disbelief, especially when they aren’t personally going through these dehumanizing experiences and they’re able to live their lives without maneuvering around ways to stay safe in the same ways women do.

Header image credit: Daniel Souza Luz/Flickr

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

Big Apple

Aspiring Social Worker. Passionate about social justice.

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