A trainer at the gym just told me about a self-defense class. At first I thought he was just advertising this new class, so I was like, ‘okay, cool. I mean I’m probably going to toss this flyer in the trash…’ Then he added in, ‘You’re so small and pretty, and it’s dangerous out there for women.’

I know he wasn’t intending to be offensive, but it’s just continuing to reinforce the fact that we live in a culture that teaches women to not get raped instead of teaching men not to rape (of course rape/violence isn’t limited solely to these gender archetypes).

I think every single woman has felt unsafe at some point, whether walking through a parking lot, or even a crowded bar. A lot of the time, we’re passive in the situation, depending on the environment, other people, or the goodwill of the possible offender themselves to stay safe. I think we’ve all been scared but just thought, ‘I hope that guy doesn’t get handsy,’ or, ‘I hope that guy isn’t following me to my car.’ If we lived in a perfect society, or even a slightly better society that taught men not to be violent toward women, we wouldn’t feel so vulnerable.

But men are told not to rape and beat women! To an extent, this is true. Growing up, most boys are taught to never put their hands on a woman (mostly because we’re weak and small but that’s a whole other rant) but the media does a damn good job of reversing those lessons.

How? When we make women objects, we make them easier to mistreat. We take their humanity away. And how does that happen? With ads in which we sever the female body into dismembered pieces so we’re left with the ‘important parts’:

Or even more dangerous, when women literally are objects:

Now that we’ve sufficiently turned women into things and stripped them of their humanity, we can do whatever we want with them. We can use them, and we’re supposed to be able to have whatever object we want. When women say no, something isn’t right. Objects are to be had and used and tossed away when we’re done with them. So it’s okay to do that women, right? Once you take away someone’s humanity, it’s easy to beat on them, treat them poorly, and use physical violence to get them to do what we want.

Unfortunately, while attempting to get society to listen up and change, we do have to keep ourselves safe. Remember that you aren’t an object. You have every right to say no. And no man or woman has the right to tell you otherwise or force you to do what they want.