I wrote an article late last summer titled A Response To 'I Raped My Boyfriend And I Didn't Even Know It.'
In it, I called out the author who stated that she would sexually abuse her boyfriend, and yet she defended herself because she didn't know it was wrong. In this article, I called out the gender double standard. In today's news, our televisions and news feeds are filled up with all of the sexual harassment allegations going on in politics, Hollywood, and basically everywhere in the world. While this is empowering, it should not just be for women, because that's not equality.
In this generation, we are begging and crusading for real equality, which is what we should be doing. But to really fight for equality, and to really consider yourself a true feminist, I believe that you should recognize the double standard.
By that I mean we should recognize that men can be victims, and they are not being represented fairly.
The double standard does not strictly stay with just sexual harassment and assault, it spans a wide variety of behavior. For example, if my boyfriend and I begin fighting in a mall and he hits me, many people will see it and reprimand him for abuse (which should be the normal reaction). However, if I hit my boyfriend, no one would even look. If I hit my boyfriend, that is the clear definition of abuse. It shouldn't matter if I'm small, or if "it shouldn't hurt that bad", it's abuse. The most infuriating part is that I can hit him all I want, but he shouldn't even dare to think about hitting me because that's "not fair". That's not equality.
Men are branded as pigs, and unfortunately, today's news about sexual allegations will keep that attitude alive.
But the fact that many are not realizing is that women can abuse too, it's not just men. Women can sexually abuse and harass as well.
Just as I said in that article I wrote months ago, women can get away with it because they are women, plain and simple.
The men who are sexually abused and harassed have no voice. No one would take them seriously. They would be looked at as wimps, liars, or attention seekers. We have no accurate statistics about abused men and we never will because they do not have a voice, they don't feel safe coming forward. If we are going to empower women to come forward, then we should empower both genders to come forward.
Ladies, fellow feminists, please stand with me and call out the double standard. What if this was your father, brother, boyfriend, or cousin? Would you want them to have a voice if they were abused?
