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Thinking a lot about our response to misogyny and violence today, on this National Day of Remembrance. For a few months this year, I received misogynistic threats in a work environment (not a coworker). It escalated to a break in and threats of violence. 1/11
And while people at work were quick to sympathize, I heard a lot of "Oh, he wouldn't actually do anything." "He just wants to scare you". "He'll move on to someone else." (How is that comforting?). My contact info was changed, I even ended up moving houses to feel safer. 2/11
I'm off work for a bit because I was so shaken by this experience and the memories it brought up of other threats I've heard, other men who've been violent. The response from people around me, tho, is that it's over. I should shake it off. It's just one bad experience. 3/11
The thing is, it's not one experience. It's a collection of threats, a Tetris game of avoiding violence, the emotional and physical scars women wear invisibly. It's a lifetime of dealing with fear, all piled up to the point where I broke. I've been feeling weak for breaking. 4/11
I feel weak for admitting I need time off, because it looks to others that nothing is wrong: I am taking it too seriously. So my question is, WHEN do we take it seriously? When we receive an onslaught of vulgar phone and email messages? When our personal property is damaged? 5/11
Or is it when our family, our homes are threatened? When someone shows up with a gun? When 14 women are murdered? When a woman living with an abuser makes 'questionable' decisions just to stay alive? WHEN do we take it seriously? 6/11
I feel gaslighted by society, frankly. I've experienced a whole spectrum of sexual violence in my lifetime, and the answer is always the same: move on. Keep your head down. THEY'LL MOVE ON TO SOMEONE ELSE. 7/11
When I heard the news about the Mtl Massacre in 1989, I was a uni student, on the verge of dropping out bc I was shattered by sexual violence I'd experienced a month earlier. No one believed me. Watching the news that night, seeing those 14 women, made me want to give up. 8/11
All these years later, I'm fighting the same battle. I'm hearing the same excuses for men who are violent. I'm still seeing the lack of compassion, the failure to believe women, the lack of support for women. I am tired. I am tired of being told I'm taking it too seriously. 9/11
I think back on how I felt watching the news on Dec 6 /89, w the conviction that world isn't safe for women. I look now at my teenage daughter. I would have hoped that after all these years, the world would have changed enough to protect her, to believe her, to support her. 10/11
When will it? 11/11
