Not even a little unique
In the interest of privacy, this person chooses to remain anonymous. Please keep it that way. But feel free to share the hell out of this.
“Today, I talked back to a catcaller. I do this often, and when I say I’m putting myself in physical danger when I do this, I’m laughed at. I’m told to stop overreacting. I’m called overdramatic.
Today, I talked back to a man who touched me in the street without my permission. It doesn’t matter what I said. What matters is that he grabbed me by the back of the head, called me a whore, and threw me into a wall. Because I stood up for myself after he put his hands on me.
The details are irrelevant. I will tell you that this happened in the middle of the afternoon. I will tell you that there were onlookers who did nothing to help. I will tell you that as I crawled around on the sidewalk, feeling for my dropped glasses, nobody came to help. I will tell you that as I walked away, shaking, bleeding from my mouth, nobody offered to walk me home.
I will tell you that I sobbed in the arms of a friend, and asked him to help me invent a story to tell the rest of my friends, because I was so ashamed. I will tell you I blamed myself for being too mouthy. I will tell you I’m still crying.
I will tell you this isn’t the first time. That I anticipate it will not be the last. I expect to get hurt again. I expect to be hit by more men in my lifetime. I expect to be called names and threatened. I anticipate it. It has happened enough for me to anticipate it. And still, I was not prepared.
I will tell you I was terrified to post about this for fear of being called more names. Things like “overdramatic” and “attention whore”. I was terrified to even tell anyone what happened. Because I assumed I would be blamed. I will tell you that I’m a tough cookie and a badass woman, and I still can’t help but blame myself.
This is 2016. I was attacked by a man, and I am preparing myself to be asked what I did to deserve it, and told what I should have done to prevent it. This needs to be talked about. My story is not even a little unique. #notallmen helps no one, when #somemen are all it takes.”
I was choked once, till I dropped to the ground, in broadlight on the corner of a busy intersection, because I was cranky to a stranger. Nobody did anything, nobody stopped, nobody checked on me. I felt like trash.
Jesus.
#ANYmen is enough to wreck public space and poison the cultural/social well.
And force women to regard men with suspicion even in the most casual of situations. Which then gets us accused of thinking every man is a potential rapist. No, not at all. We just don’t know which ones they are.
I later learned that this is called a linguistic ambiguity, and refers to phrases that can be understood in more than one way. Consider the following examples: