The F Word I Was Afraid to Say

I was raised in a conservative Christian world. Going to church was part of the brand. Sunday morning. Sunday night. Wednesdays were Awana when I was younger and youth group as I got older. I can still sing the song. Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed. What about the work women?

Purity culture was everywhere without being named. Be careful how you dress. How you talk. How you behave. Don't cause the boys to be tempted. If something happened to a girl, the questions seemed to begin with what she had done. The message I absorbed was that even a boy's choices could somehow become a girl's responsibility.

Women could work in the nursery or teach Sunday school, but speaking from the front was reserved for men. Unless, of course, it was the moms' group or women's Bible study. I learned that my voice, my thoughts and my education had a place. Just a smaller one.

My own wedding vows included agreeing to obey my husband. Justin and I both laugh about that one. There were other messages, too. I was too much. Too large. Figuratively and literally. I was told to give up gymnastics at nine because I was too big. My laugh was too loud. Being shushed was an everyday experience. Ask Justin how shushing goes over with me now.

Small. Quiet. Ladylike. Demure. That was the standard.

When I burped, my mom would tell me that no man would sing me “Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady.” Never liked that song anyway. I once told friends in youth group that my parents would forgive me for murder before they would forgive me for getting pregnant before marriage. My parents never said that. But somewhere in all those messages, I had come to believe that an unmarried pregnancy would make me damaged goods. That no man would choose me, even if he had been with multiple women himself.

I was also taught that men would provide for me and protect me. It took me a long time to question why so much of the responsibility for being safe seemed to belong to me.

This is a glimpse into my construction. My faith, my family and the world around me all had a hand in it. I can appreciate parts of that foundation and still question what I was taught. Two things can be true.

I didn't begin pushing back on much of this until the last decade. And one of the words I had to reconsider was feminist.

In my world, feminists were angry. Unreasonable. Man haters. I associated the word with bra burning and lesbians, without stopping to question why any of that was supposed to frighten me. Then my own daughter told me she was bisexual, and beliefs I had carried without examining suddenly became very personal.

Deconstruction commencing.

Merriam-Webster defines feminism around the political, economic and social equality of the sexes. That was a much simpler idea than the one I had been handed.

I want women and girls to have the same rights, respect and opportunities as men. I want their voices to matter. I want them to be safe. Once I understood the word that way, I recognized myself in it.

And lately, reading about Jane Doe and the seven men named in her lawsuit against Cornell and members of the Chi Phi fraternity, I've been thinking about all of this again. She says she was drugged and raped. Reading her account brought me back to those old questions about what a girl did, how she behaved and whether she had somehow brought it on herself.

I've seen comments questioning the 10 drinks she reportedly had before arriving at the fraternity house. That number seems to give some people a place to put the responsibility.

But there are other numbers I don't want us to forget. Seven men named in her lawsuit. A fraternity Snapchat group reported to have included 57 members, where messages described a woman as available for sex.

How many people read those messages? I don't know. What stays with me is the question of what someone does when a message like that reaches their phone. Does he question it? Say something? Check on her? Or let it pass?

What I keep returning to is this: drinking does not give someone else permission to hurt you. A woman's safety should never depend on her making every decision perfectly.

Reading about this left me with feelings too big to hold by myself. I reached out to women I love and trust. I cried. Tears of feral rage and devastating sadness. I thought about my daughters and the women in my life, and about how familiar the conversations around safety have become.

Watch your drink. Stay with a friend. Share your location. Let someone know when you get home.

These are things I have told my own daughters. I understand why we say them. I also wish they didn't have to take up so much space in our lives.

Who is behind me? How long has he been there? Should I call someone? Is this rideshare safe? Will this person accept no? How do I leave without making him angry?

I can't speak for every woman or every man. But these are familiar calculations in conversations with the women I know. I wonder how often the men in our lives have to make them. How much room there might be in our heads if we didn't.

My daughters, sisters, nieces, aunts, cousins and girlfriends deserve to feel safe. They deserve to be heard when something happens to them. They deserve to be as loud and large as they choose to be.

After reading about Jane Doe, I sent my daughters a text. Justin and I offered to pay for any self-defense class they wanted to take. I wanted to give them something useful, even as I wished the answer didn't involve asking them to do one more thing to protect themselves.

Then I texted my boys.

“Good morning my boys. First I want you to know how much I love you. Second I want you to know that you are living in a time where silence is complicit. I know I have told you this many times before but I am telling you again.

This Cornell 7 is really 57.

I want you to completely understand that every girl/woman you know feels scared when she is walking alone. Her head is on a swivel because this is how she has to live. This is how your sisters, your fiancé, your mother, your cousins, your aunts have to operate in this world.

Be the man who says something when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular. .Steps in when the see something that’s just not right. Have the women around you know you are different.

I know you both already are good men. Keep it up.
I’m so angry & sad right now about so many things and I’m so proud of who both of you are.
Make the world safer for the women. You don’t have to take on the world. Just do the next right thing.”

Both responded, “I love you mom.”

I will keep having these conversations with my sons, just as I will keep having them with my daughters.

But I want the conversations with my daughters to include more than instructions for avoiding harm. I want them to hear that nothing they wear, no way they move, nothing they drink and no place they go makes them deserving of it. If something happens, I will believe them. They can come to me. They will not have to carry it alone.

And I want my boys to know that being a good man includes what you do when another man crosses a line. In a room. In a group chat. Among friends. Even when saying something might cost you some comfort.

We are talking about this now because this case has become so public. But women experience sexual violence every day. This story has our attention, and I want that attention to last beyond the headlines.

I want the men in our lives to understand that the worry doesn't start when a story like this becomes news, and it doesn't disappear when the conversation moves on. For so many of us, it's there when we go for a run, meet someone for a drink or walk back to our car. We make plans around it. We check in with each other. We think through how we'll get home safely. It's exhausting, and we should not have to do it.

I want men to talk about that, too. With us and with each other. To say clearly that women should be safe, and to speak up when another man's words or actions threaten that safety. I want that willingness to be there on an ordinary day, in an ordinary conversation, when there is no headline prompting it.

When I hear “not all men,” I think about Justin and my sons and the men I love. Of course it isn't all men. I also think about how much their choices can matter. I want more examples of men speaking up with outrage, because women deserve safety whether or not they are someone's wife, daughter or sister.

I want a woman to be able to set down her drink without worrying about what happens to it. To walk alone. To wear what she wants. To say no, even quietly, and know it will be respected. To report harm and be met with care, rather than a search for what she should have done differently.

Those are things I want for the women I love. They are things I want for women I will never meet.

Earlier, I wrote about construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. Much of that journey has been about my faith. I describe myself as an unchurched, feminist, ex-vangelical who loves Jesus. Now that is quite a LinkedIn bio.

For me, that means I can no longer belong to a faith community that gives women a smaller place. I need one that welcomes the LGBTQIA+ community fully. One that responds to a woman describing harm with compassion and a willingness to listen. One where love is something people practice intensely and demonstratively.

I'm still reconstructing. Still sorting through what I believe, what I was handed and what I want to pass on to my children.

I used to be afraid that calling myself a feminist would tell people something terrible about me. Now it feels like an honest way to say what I believe. I am proud and empowered to call myself a feminist.

I love the men in my life. I want a safer, more equal world for the women in my life. I can say both with my whole chest. And I don't need to make myself smaller to do it.

Still learning, still growing, and apparently still working on my vocabulary.

Keep Running,
Sarah

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