Imagine that you are watching the evening news only to discover that a 6-year-old girl has been raped and murdered. Several news reporters seem slightly horrified and concerned, but they question what she was wearing and the time of the incident. Imagine you are scrolling through Facebook and you see a video of young women being beaten, tortured, raped and killed in the Middle East. You are shocked and confused as to why people are doing this, for you had no idea that this was happening on the other side of the world. In order to find out more about the reason behind these incidents, you decide to take a look at the comments section under the post. Hundreds upon thousands of people are leaving slanderous statements, such as, “She was asking for it. She wasn't wearing her hijab,” and “What a whore! Her ankles were showing. She deserved to die.”
Fast forward 20 years and your 16-year-old daughter is walking home from a party. She’s too scared to call you and ask you for a ride home because she knows that she’ll be in trouble for being out late on a school night. All of her friends who can drive are too drunk to get behind the wheel. She has no other option but to walk. She is already a little on edge because it’s late out and she’s alone; however, because she is a female, she is also scared that she might be kidnapped, raped or killed. She has been told from the time that she was born to never walk home alone and that she must dress modestly or else the opposite sex might get too “distracted." She must respect a man's opinion of her more than her own.
She is almost home when she hears someone following her. Maybe more than a few people. She hears multiple whoops from older, drunken men who are catcalling at her. She is frightened and starts to run. She sees her home but doesn't want to run directly towards it because she doesn't want the creepy men to know which house she lives in. She runs to a neighbor's house that your family is friendly with and knocks on the door until someone answers and lets her inside. She tells them what just occurred as she is shaking from fear. They all wait until it appears safe enough to walk her over to your house. She never speaks of it again and tells the neighbors to keep it a secret because she doesn't want to disappoint anyone.
You know that in one sense or another these acts are wrong, but you simply can’t figure out why it feels unjust to you. If more parents raised their children to be feminists, incidents such as these are less likely to happen. Being feminist means believing that women and men are equals. Even simply being a good person requires us to think this way. So, the next time you hear someone say the words, "boys will be boys," remember to remind them that boys should be held accountable for their actions, just like girls are.
