How to Create a Rape Victim
I WAS WAITING FOR MY SANDWICH at Subway®, and I heard a woman on the phone with her daughter. I knew it was her daughter because she was on the phone from the time my bread was cut in half to the time it was slid into a wax paper bag. It was all I could do to keep from interrupting her and telling her how to raise her daughter. But I have found in the past that people are not always happy to get this kind of input. And I was unsure as to whether my message would get through to her at all, given our differences in class and race. So I bit my tongue and listened to another child being slowly murdered with the toxic sweetness of a parents' insecurities.
My sandwich was delicious. But I did not enjoy it.
The Conversation from my end:
Mom: "...okay, then we'll talk more about then when I get there. Okay, bye. I love you!"
Silence-
Mom: "I love you, I said."
Silence-
Mom: "Honey. When someone tells you I love you, you are supposed to say it back."
Silence-
Mom: "Because it's rude. So...bye, I love you."
Silence-
Mom: "It's rude because it hurts peoples' feelings. Now say 'I love you'. I love you!"
Silence-
Mom: "Okay, bye now."
Now, don't get me wrong. This is not a post on women, nor on how mothers ruin daughters. It is a comment on a couple things, though. It is a post, first and foremost, about how parents use their children to fulfill their own emotional needs at the expense of the children. This is not exclusive to mothers by any means, but practiced by mother or father, it is a very dangerous and harmful behavior. It is abuse, in fact, of a very insidious and societally acceptable sort.
In this particular example, it teaches the little girl that her feelings and her personal boundaries are secondary to the feelings and wants of the person who wants to get some lovin' from her. Years of this, and how easy will it be to say "no" to some guy with a boner who gets her alone after the prom? You know all the lines he'll drop on her, and I bet they won't sound too different than her parent's. She'll be inculcated from years of forced affection ("Give your grandpa a kiss...don't be rude," "Tell me you love me, now" "You're hurting my feelings by not saying you love me") and the idea that her own body and feelings are inconsequential in the face of someone else's desires and wants. And then god forbid, should a day ever come when a man forces himself on her, or even coerces her when she'd rather say NO but doesn't feel empowered to—and she comes home absolutely wrecked over it...will the parent ever put 2 and 2 together?
No.
And who will be made to own those feelings of guilt and shame, despite any consequences to the male? The girl who was never taught that her love and her display and expression of that love is HERS to give out at her OWN discretion. And why? So the parent didn't have their poor feelings hurt.
As I have said before, I'm very big on not standing by when I see what I think of abuse to kids. As I've written earlier in this blog, I once went downstairs and confronted my own landlord on their screaming, incessant screaming, at their small children. I was scared, yeah. Anything could have happened. I could have lost my apartment, or far worse. Once upon a time I knocked on a neighbor's door because his screaming at his girlfriend was getting absolutely scary and they were right next to my bedroom wall. The man absolutely flipped out and threatened to kill me when I dared approach him about it (although at least this derailed the topic). Then, I had to listen for hours, him ranting in the next room about going to get his gun and shooting me. I lay there terrified out of my mind with seven size D batteries in a pillowcase wrapped in my fist in case I had to get up and swing it at someone. So you never know what will happen when you step into someone's sphere of abuse. But when it comes to children, it is our duty to disregard our own health and think of theirs. Especially if they are our own children.
Love is not a gun. Don't stick up your kids for a feelgood. Don't aim it like a weapon. Love is a flower. Shower it with care and light and nourishment, and it will bend to you and radiate beauty in response.
(crossposted at www.correntewire.com and theunapologeticmexican.org)
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Parenting
ah, well...yes. i always
Submitted by Nezua Limon Xol... on 20 April 2007 - 6:19pm.
ah, well...yes. i always wish i could do everything in every scene i run across to step in and help. i do feel a great personal calling on this point, i assure you. sometimes i have to weigh the social dangers...such as how someone might react weighed against what good it would do in the given case, the locale, the person's vibes, the immanent threat to the child, and so on.
thank you for your words. there is a thread here that might benefit from your point of view.
:)
Submitted by NanceConfer on 21 April 2007 - 11:07am.
It's always easier to imagine what we would have/could have said. I wasn't trying to criticize you in this case; just wishing this sort of intervention was easier.
Off to the thread you link.
Nance
Well
Submitted by NanceConfer on 21 April 2007 - 5:06pm.
I didn't have anything to add to your blog post but I did end up bookmarking you. So, thanks! 
Nance
hi nance, that makes
Submitted by Nezua Limon Xol... on 21 April 2007 - 5:10pm.
hi nance, that makes sense...the thread evolved a lot since i posted to you. i'm glad you'll be reading, thanks!
Here's an odd thing
Submitted by NanceConfer on 21 April 2007 - 6:04pm.
All this time, I thought you were a woman!
Hmmm. . . does that change anything I've been thinking as I've been reading here and at your site?
I don't think so. Which is a good thing!
Also, I was wondering if you were familiar with the ideas of unschooling and parenting ideas like attachment parenting. We are unschoolers so I wondered. . .
Nance
better half
Submitted by Nezua Limon Xol... on 23 April 2007 - 4:17pm.
well, i appreciate the compliment, Nance!
i've heard the names of the terms you mention. i'm not sure i know of the specifics of each idea. i, myself, think much better education can come from home schooling, myself. i'll have to look up these ideas you mention.
Man
Submitted by kitkat on 30 May 2007 - 10:59pm.
Oh. Whoops. There it is, right in your profile.
I'd like to tell you how much it means to me that you described yourself as having curled up on the bed w/ batteries in a pillowcase.
Lying down while afraid.
Not owning anything heavier than a bunch of batteries with which to defend oneself.
These are scene details that women include all the time in narration but that men really don't very often.
Thanks for normalizing them for your gender. Every voice does that just a little bit more (kind of like Granny Liz from the old "Granny Gets a Vibrator" blog normalized a female civilian non-body-builder obsessing about her weightlifting results). :-D
What a guy.
Submitted by Nezua Limon Xol... on 20 April 2007 - 8:07pm.
ugh. way to build the self-esteem. how disgusting.
creating victims
Submitted by melodious on 8 May 2007 - 4:36pm.
If your brain is tuned to such things you can hear this sort of dialogue in every public venue. It is a manifestation of the subtleties of patriarchal language. I wrote a paper in college arguing that institutional change in education and human rights is nearly impossible because our very language supports these outmoded principles. The mother you heard was most likely treated in the same way. If you had been able to ask her, you probably would have heard her stories of being victimised herself; possibly/probably more than once. But if you could point out to her what her language was doing to her daughter she might not be able to discern the patterns of what she is saying. So many of us are deaf to these subtleties and never once make the connection between demanding our versions of what we may insist is the teaching of proper manners and the future victimization of the indoctrinated child. I was born an outlaw and refused much of my parents indocrination and, even so, was for years victimized in certain situations because of outmoded ideas of power and propriety. Remember, the ruling patriarchs wrote the rules of language and set the unwritten expectations of society. They used the so called rules of civility and etiquette and defined our cultural expectations. This is changing of course in obvious ways but the cultural viewpoint takes longer because the unspoken expectations are so deeply imbedded in our behaviour.
true. good stuff. by us
Submitted by Nezua Limon Xol... on 8 May 2007 - 5:21pm.
true. good stuff. by us pointing them out, i think it helps. to see the language we are using from an outside view. big changes can come from seeing language differently, using it differently, learning to see the shapes that move behind it, underneath it, the patterns ingrained, as you speak about.
It doesn't take much...
Submitted by James Jerreau (not verified) on 30 May 2007 - 1:22am.
In the phone call, it is understandable that you couldn't say anything the daughter would hear, and educating the mother would be a big job.
But it's also important to remember that kids aren't stupid, they are wired to learn, and sometimes all it takes for a kid to put something in context is to get that an outsider thought it was unreasonable too. I have found, in malls, for example, that simple eye contact can make a big difference. The kid gets the message "yes, your parent is being unreasonable. Other people see it that way also." It's not as rewarding as fixing the parent in real-time, but it can be a real help, not to be dismissed either.
I wish
you had found a way to say something. It really does matter. Kids really do remember. And we really do have to work at respecting our children's privacy and not playing power games with their heads.
Nance