Surviving George Will

Well, George, I guess you’ve really stepped in it this time. Did you honestly think women wouldn’t respond to your latest disgusting nonsense? Survivor privilege. Seriously? You really believe we’ve attained some sort of status when some asshole decides to rape us? We’re ridiculed and chided for even suggesting the rape happened, and somehow this gives way to privilege? For whom? Certainly not for the survivor. You seem to be the one taking all the “privilege” here. Just who do you think you are? Don’t bother answering; you’ve already tried to do that and insulted everyone in the process.

Since you clearly don’t understand compassion, or anything else for that matter, maybe I can offer you a different perspective on this issue. While I was not raped during my college years, I was molested as a child by my father, so I knew from an early age that the world was a nightmare waiting to happen. But while I attended college, I fended off various advances, both verbal and physical, from other students, guys on the street, my professors, guys on the bus..you name it. And George, I began college when I was only sixteen. My age never mattered to anyone. So whose privilege was it again?

Prior to beginning the sixth grade, my family moved to Oregon. I was with my younger brother in the park one day and I was accosted by a boy from my school. He followed us around the park and I had a bad feeling the whole time. I knew he was going to do something, so we started heading for home. The next thing I knew, he had his arm around me and was pulling me away from my brother. The look on his face was startling. My brother was seven years younger and deaf, so there was no way I was letting this kid take me anywhere. I grabbed my brother’s stocking hat off his head and hit the kid in the face with it. I screamed, “what’s wrong with you!!” at him. And then the strangest thing happened. He had the audacity to look hurt. He never said one word to me and simply walked away. But in that moment, I understood why he did what he did. He actually believed he was entitled to do whatever he wanted to do. And it was clear that he thought I was punishing him by refusing his advances. Funny thing is, his name was George too. As was my abuser’s middle name.

Is it that women are trying to better themselves by attending college that bothers you so much? Is that why they’re fair game to you? Because what a privilege it must be to sit at your desk, or wherever it is that you sit when you write this crap, and spew out such disgusting and insulting nonsense. Is your heart that cold? You really only diminish yourself in the process. And then to double down when you’re called out for the misogynist you clearly are? You’re evidently among the privileged few who can do this and apparently not get fired for it, so whose privilege is it again?

We learn to fear men because of comments like yours. We learn that there is no safe harbor for us anywhere. Some of us learn that when we’re so very young, as I did. How many of us grow up, attend college, and face the same danger there that we faced in our own homes? And how many of us would give anything for men to stand with us, stand up for us, protect us..instead of fearing something else entirely.

Misogynists like you, George, find justification in your words. Justification that will further on their boundary issues and bring untold fear into the lives of women who really don’t want this experience that you seem so privileged to push on them. Because every time a survivor hears comments that demean or diminish what they went through, it chips away at our souls. It would be lovely it that weren’t the case, but that’s what happens. The dumbass making the comments feels just dandy, while we re-experience at least some part of the terror we felt during the crime committed against us. Yes, George, terror. It’s as if we’re transported back to the moment where everything changed. When it was decided by SOMEONE ELSE, that we were garbage and worth nothing. And try as we might, we can’t consider the source because we are so broken inside..still. Long after it’s done. Long after it’s over. 

Survivor privilege. Oh, George, what it must be like to be you..