I need to weigh in on the shock (shock! I tell you!) of so many men and women that druggings and rapes were (are) happening in schools and most people are keeping that secret.
I don’t think it’s been pointed out enough the role of status hierarchies in schools. It’s not just cliques. It’s a rank ordering that specifies who you can talk to, eat lunch with, be seen being nice to.
Add to that the role of patriarchy and misogyny. Girls are taught that their reputation is all they have. Being someone who is treated well by the BM/WOCs, can be the difference between utter loneliness and any social life at all.
In fact, it is often a matter of survival. Lacking the imprimatur of the in-crowd can make you a target for bullying, torment, and yes, sexual violence.
The women who are so certain that the BMOC treated women with respect are usually on the right side of the Madonna/Whore divide. They don’t see the broken ones, either bc they choose not to, or bc their own status depends on not seeing it.
To report an attack by a higher-status person is to label yourself publicly as not worthy of high status. To self-identify as having been used as trash guarantees that most (all?) of the other kids will see you as trash.
This is the universe in which Kavanaugh and so many others operated. It’s a bifurcated world, where the in-crowd naturally defends its prerogatives, without it ever dawning on them that that’s what they’re doing.
The subtext of so much of the support for Kavanaugh is that the “good girls” were treated with respect. I don’t even doubt that. Bc it’s good girls’ job to understand that men/boys are judged by how they treat the worthy, not what they do in the dark.
Until we can all understand that Being A Good Girl is a trap that can only exist in rape culture, we will continue to see lives ruined. And I mean both the victims and their tormentors.
Being a rapist and/or rape apologist and/or a defender of Good Girl status is a terrible way to live your life. It degrades and perverts everything about you.
I’m a survivor of multiple sexual assaults, starting when I was 7. I believed the lie for far too long, that if I told anyone, everyone would know I wasn’t worthy of respect. At 53, I’m now able to say, Bullshit.
But for all the kids out there still being fed that poison, please know that there is nothing wrong with you that made it okay for that to happen to you.
And for those who think their lives were made better by having a system that threatened them into being Good Girls or Boys, I hope you are someday able to put down the fear of not being worthy, and join us in the real world.
Life is messy and beautiful and it hurts like hell, but it’s real, and it’s the only way to experience real joy. We are waiting to welcome you to humanity. You can eat lunch with us.
@threadreaderapp please unroll
