The Moment I Became a Feminist

I took a class in college called Interpersonal Communication. On Tuesdays we would sit and talk about a new aspect of communicating with people, apologizing or breaking-up or dealing with conflict, and then on Thursday we would role-play. We would get into groups of five or six, and we would spread out across Hartung Hall to video tape ourselves learning how to talk to each other. The class is infamous on Anderson’s campus, and grad schools from across the country have praised our Psychology department for not only teaching us these skills but for also training us to use them.

I wish I still had my video from that week in September. We split up to learn how to say “no”, which in itself changed my life. As the tape rolled, a trainer would ask us to do something, and we were to say “no” without hesitation. No excuses, no fidgeting - just that one, tricky little word. But after everyone had received the chance, the gift, of saying no, the women were given one more task. We role-played that we were at a party. We stood in the center of the room, one at a time, and a man would grab us by the arm, camera still rolling, and ask us to follow him to his bedroom. Our first line was to say “take your hands off of me.” We were to make eye contact. We were to speak with strength and with dignity. And then, in the training, the man was asked to become more aggressive. After our first attempt at “no”, he would tug a little harder, use some smooth talk to get us to follow him. Our second line was the same - with eye contact, and with our feet firmly planted, we were to say once again, “take your hands off of me,” this time with a raised voice. Still, the man wouldn’t listen, and so on our final take, we were told to yell, as loudly as our lungs would allow, “TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME, YOU ARE MOLESTING ME.” He let go. The word "molest" brings attention, and often sends the attacker running.

I shook for days. I don’t envy the poor guy I yelled at, but I do remember his face after I yelled at him: He was impressed; he was proud. I can bet you none of the men who volunteered to be the “bad guys” in the role-play that day will ever defend men who molest women, because they saw our eyes as we yelled at them. They saw the years of pent-up fear and anger. They saw how hurt we had been by the threat of sexual assault and rape. They saw the wounds - they saw the tears. Our Professor asked everyone to be extra sensitive that day - she mentioned that this exercise was often life-changing for women. She said that most of us wouldn’t even realize, until the moment we let ourselves yell, how harassment and leering eyes had been held over our lives. My heart still beats faster at the thought of it. 

I have never been molested. I hope that is never a part of my story. I have been cat-called, ogled, and seen for only my body. I have watched as Pastors looked me up and down before making eye contact and asking how I am. I have been told by men I’ve dated that my worth is in my ability to produce children and take care of them. I have been laughed at and I’ve been ignored. Luckily, I went to a school where we were all taught new ways to approach gender, and I now work in an environment where the men are adamant about fighting for a new way of doing things. It’s real, though - the assault and the fear and the oppression - it’s all still real, and it hurts when people laugh it off. It hurts to hear that we are making it all up, and it hurts to be told that it's "just the way it is” or that “boys will be boys.”

I grew up in a time when "feminism" was a curse word. It meant that men were animals and women were angels. I still disagree with that feminism. I’m not the kind of feminist that hates men. I don’t think women are better than men - I just don’t think we’re less than them. I’m the kind of feminist who thinks she should be able to go to bed peacefully, without worrying what that man in the parking lot was thinking as he watched me walk up to my apartment door. I’m the kind of feminist who thinks she should be able to speak her mind without a man laughing in her face. I’m the kind of feminist who thinks that men are incredible and strong and smart - and so are women. We’ve all got something to offer.

And so it was that on a September day, when I yelled the strangest sentence I’d ever heard, that I found my voice.