The past couple of weeks have been tough for women. I’m sure we’ve all read the articles and letters about the Stanford Rapist case, but then there’s also the news coming out about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s volatile relationship. In both cases, not only were women the victims of rape and abuse, but they were re-victimized and basically told by all of society that it was their fault…WHAT?! In what way, shape, or form should the victim become the problem and blame be placed on them? You should really read the things people are saying about these two.

Firstly, there was the Stanford Student. Oh man. This case really blew my mind. Apparently, when you’re a white male in America you can rape an unconscious woman, change your story to blame her when you realize she can’t remember anything, be found guilty on felony charges, get 6 months, and then 3 of those are suspended. Wait…what? Let me explain why every woman in America is very outraged by this. 1 in 6 women are victims of sexual assault. Of those victims, they are 3 times more likely to be college students. There are 2 sexual assaults for every 1 robbery that happens on a college campus. Of all of these, college students are only 20 percent likely to report the crime and non-college students are 30 percent more likely. Over 50 percent of unreported sexual assaults on a college campus are because they didn’t want to get the person in trouble, fear of it happening again, believing they are at fault or it wasn’t important enough, or believing the police can’t or won’t help. So why on earth would we make this harder for her? Because he’s an athlete and he’s really good at swimming?

Then there was Johnny Depp. I really loved me some Johnny Depp. He’s pretty hot and he’s great at his job. When the news came out about Amber Heard, I was really disappointed, however, I didn’t blame Amber and say it was her fault. Why? I mean he’s still hot and he’s still a great actor, but that doesn’t change the fact I honestly don’t know him personally or what he’s like off screen. I don’t care that I loved every single "Pirates of the Caribbean" or "What’s Eating Gilbert Grape" was amazing if he was abusing her…none of that even matters.

Honestly, it’s just sad. We look at someone who was victimized and we say that doesn’t matter because he’s a good actor or a good swimmer. Since when is it okay to take someone’s experience and belittle it because the perpetrator has the ability to do someone we find favorable? Why do we put the lives of the guilty over the lives of the innocent? One of the things said in the Stanford case was we don’t want to ruin his life anymore so we won’t give him the max sentence. He ruined her life already so doesn’t he deserve that? He. Raped. Her. On top of that, he showed no remorse and no guilt, he placed the blame on her and alcohol. He never admitted that he was actually the one at fault.

As girls we grow up and we’re told boys will be boys and that they pick on you because they like you. However, girls are bratty and mean girls. From a young age, boys are taught they can get away with things while girls are taught to brush it off. The older you get and the more you mature and develop, society gives you guidelines on how you should dress and act. You can’t wear certain things to school because it’ll distract the boys because they’re boys with hormones. I’m sorry, but I’ve never understood this statement. I mean there’s the obvious: instead of placing blame on the girl’s body, maybe you should teach the boys to control themselves? There’s also the fact that it’s made as if only boys have hormones and can get distracted. I don’t know if you know or were a girl in high school going through puberty, but we very much have hormones too. The thing is it doesn’t matter what the boy or girl is wearing, if someone of the opposite sex finds you attractive, you could have on a parka and the hormones could still be raging.

Stop making excuses for boys and men…if a woman can control her hormones and impulses so can you. If I can watch you play or practice basketball, football, or baseball while shirtless or in tight pants and not stalk you after your game, bash you over your head, and forcefully have my way with you then you can watch me in a skirt or crop top while cheering or dancing without doing the same. We all have hormones, we all have impulses so why is it okay for males to give in and females have to pretend that we’re nuns. That, or we’re sluts who asked for it. Since when does the way you dress or the amount you drink mean you asked to be sexually assaulted? Contrary to popular belief, as women we don’t dress the way we do for the opposite sex, we do it for ourselves. We want to love our bodies, dress to show what we love about ourselves, go out, have drinks with friends and maybe get wasted. So what did we expect? We expected compliments, to feel even better about ourselves, and maybe have a killer hangover…we didn’t expect to get sexually assaulted, to have someone take advantage of us and our carefree night, and to end up feeling worse about our bodies than we ever did before.

Then there’s the boob problem. You do realize my boobs weren’t made for you, but they’re actually made for when I have kids so that I may have a chance to feed them naturally from my own body. Do you get turned on by cow utters or when you see a dog nursing her young? No? If my boobs are out in a restaurant or any other public and there’s a kid latched to my nipple, look away if it bothers you so much. I’m feeding my kid, I’m not out here streaking and getting arrested for public indecency. My boob is out because I’m breastfeeding and I’m not thinking about you or your husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend or grandma Barbara or grandpa Joe, I’m thinking that my kid is crying because they’re hungry so I’m going to be a good parent and feed them. Stop over-sexualizing my want to keep my child fed and happy because if I just let them cry then you’d be complaining about the screaming baby ruining your time out.

Moral of the story, it’s not okay to beat me, it’s not okay to rape me, and it’s not okay to target me. Stop over-sexualizing women. Stop making them feel bad about themselves so that you can rationalize why this man did this horrendous crime. He did because he wanted to. Women get raped while wearing jeans and oversized t-shirts. They get raped while in their own homes sleeping. He didn’t hit her because he lost his temper once and it’ll never happen again. He had probably lost his temper before. In fact, it was probably verbal abuse before it even escalated to physical violence. She didn’t whip out her boob to tempt your husband or boyfriend, she just wanted to feed her kid. So, lay off and stop trying to figure what caused certain men to flip a switch and become monsters.