me too. a thousand times me too.

From el­e­men­tary school, where boys made bets to try to lift my top to see if my breasts were real leav­ing me feel­ing hu­mil­i­at­ed when it fi­nal­ly hap­pened. I was 9 years old. Boys will be boys right? To mid­dle school boys try­ing to snap bra straps, mak­ing dis­gust­ing com­ments to me just for eat­ing a pop­si­cle “She must be a slut for eat­ing a pop­si­cle like that,” or go­ing in for a boob grab dur­ing flag foot­ball in PE. To high school, where no ap­par­ent­ly does­n’t mean no and re­jec­tions re­sult in be­ing called deroga­to­ry names and hav­ing false ru­mors spread to ruin your cred­i­bil­i­ty when you try to tell any­one.

To the time I had to walk home from school where three well liked guys fol­lowed me, walk­ing close­ly be­hind me, they de­tailed how they would like to rape me and then throw my body in a ditch. I felt they were try­ing to goad me into run­ning or con­ver­sa­tion. I nev­er looked back or quick­ened my pace, de­ter­mined not to show them any fear for sat­is­fac­tion. When I had told peo­ple, the boys said it was a prank, one even asked me to prom a year lat­er. When I an­gri­ly re­spond­ed, some girl­friends felt I had been too harsh.

To adult­hood where cat call­ing, hav­ing con­struc­tion work­ers grab your ass while wait­ing at a cross walk, or men in­ap­pro­pri­ate­ly rub­bing up or touch­ing you on a crowd­ed bus are dai­ly oc­cur­rences many women, my­self in­clud­ed live through. My col­lege room­mate told me her friend had cum thrown in her face on bart. The sad thing is, it’s not even that un­usu­al just not of­ten talked about.

To hav­ing male boss­es sniff my hair when try­ing to show them my work, writ­ing me up for dis­tract­ing them with my wardrobe, or when pre­sent­ing them my portfolio/ideas con­ver­sa­tion of­ten goes to if I have a boyfriend or some re­mark about my phys­i­cal ap­pear­ance. I’ve even had men refuse to look at my work be­cause my port­fo­lio cov­er was too ‘girly’ for them, but that in it­self is an­oth­er con­ver­sa­tion that con­stant­ly needs to be had.

At a pre­vi­ous job, af­ter months of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment from clients that ranged from in­ap­pro­pri­ate lan­guage and touch­ing to mild stalk­ing and to threats of rape, I had went to my boss and com­plained of feel­ing un­safe and no longer want­i­ng to work alone or nights. I was told that this is the city and I can’t be so sen­si­tive. I quit a week lat­er.

To a month ago, where I was walk­ing to a bath­room at a lo­cal bar and a guy came out of nowhere and tried to stick his hand down my pants. The fact that I feel like I need to car­ry a weapon, be a mar­tial arts mas­ter, or wear an Iron­man suit in or­der to get through life un­scathed is in­sane when you ac­tu­al­ly think about it. Why should I feel like I have to con­stant­ly adapt to sur­vive in a world of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment when the world should adapt to re­con­struct its cul­ture, to ad­dress its “cri­sis in mas­culin­i­ty” as some are call­ing it.

To be clear, I’m not say­ing all men are pigs or sex­u­al ha­rass­ment falls en­tire­ly on one gen­der. It doesn’t and no one per­son re­gard­less of gen­der, race, or ori­en­ta­tion should ever ex­pe­ri­ence such events.

It seems when you try to talk about sex­u­al ha­rass­ment peo­ple be­come very de­fen­sive and try to pick apart your sto­ry or shut you down, la­bel­ing you a com­plain­er or liar. Just an­oth­er fear of nev­er want­i­ng to dis­cuss it. If you are one of these peo­ple, I sug­gest not com­ment­ing neg­a­tive­ly on mine or any oth­ers post. Peo­ple are shar­ing deeply per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences and their brav­ery should be sup­port­ed not de­grad­ed for your ego. I’m mere­ly pre­sent­ing a con­densed sto­ry of some of my ex­pe­ri­ences to show the im­por­tance of the #metoo move­ment, the life­long cy­cle of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment, and show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the many oth­er peo­ple who are par­tic­i­pat­ing.

It’s hard to talk about and hard­er to get peo­ple to lis­ten. I’ve even had peo­ple in my life ask me not to tell them of my ex­pe­ri­ences, cur­rent or past, be­cause it makes them un­com­fort­able. It should and we should all feel un­com­fort­able.

#metoo
 
 

—na­tal­ie kunkel

Flom­mist Na­tal­ie Kunkel will al­ways be more Liz Lemon than Vic­to­ria Se­cret mod­el. Copy­right © 2016 Na­tal­ie Kunkel.

MOR D’ARTÍCULOS  MOR FLOMM !

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