01-21-2009: Women's Studies (Past Post)

I picked up the book Listen Up for my Intro to Women and Gender Studies today. Flipping through the book, I found an essay titled "Don't Call Me a Survivor." I was compelled to read it, as I so often am with things that I suspect will trigger memories and feelings I would rather forget and not have.
Our stories were so similar. It was not the action of rape itself that I believe got to me. But the pain, the betrayal, the fear was all the same. The realization that as a woman, we have only the power that the men in this world allow us, was the same.
I came to Women and Gender Studies because I was powerless. As a woman, I was powerless. I had been told all my life that I was equal, that I had every right and every power and every ability that men did, while at the same time being bombarded and invaded every day by the subliminal and overt messages that in fact, women were nothing compared to men. We should be seen, not heard. We were trophies, we were models, we were accessories. We were adorable, we became cute, then hot, then sexy. We were valued not by our contributions to the world but by our contributions to the lives of the men in the world. We are expected to submit, to be retiring and accommodating. And though our bodies belong to us and us alone, a man has if not the right than the ability to take even that from us and make it nothing but a tool for himself.
We are told that we should stand up for ourselves. That our body is our temple. That our body is ours. But so many times we are told that if we are attacked, if we are molested, mugged, or raped, that fighting is dangerous! That our lives are worth more than our ownership of ourselves. So many times, in emergency rooms, in therapist's offices, in psychiatric wards across the state I have been told that I did the right thing. That giving up the fight while still alive and allowing myself to be raped was right. That letting him have his way with my body was the right thing to do!
I came to Women and Gender Studies for power. To be able to stand up for myself again. To take back my life, my body, my world. I came to this major to stop myself from being raped again. To keep myself from being attacked again every night within my dreams, and every day within my memories. I want to help myself be a woman, and to help every woman and girl have the power that we were promised as children.
Ownership of our own mind, heart, soul and body is our right.
Power is our right.