It pains me that these words have already been written in so many ways, yet still no one listens. My own experiences, combined with those of the women who I am close to and those who are merely strangers, are forever ingrained into my mind.

Each of those stories describing yet another sexual assault or harassment case on the news nowadays? They only make me think one thing: that could have been me.

A few days ago, my father brought home “Surviving Jersey,” a book written by a high school classmate about his experiences growing up in Long Valley, New Jersey. As my dad talked about how the memories were all rushing back to him, one part in particular stood out to me- when Rachel Domas, at just 14, was randomly abducted on her way home from school in 1985.

When Sanders reached out to his former classmates about the incident, he mentioned how every guy he spoke to had trouble recalling the abduction- even my dad too had forgotten about it. But every girl Sanders spoke with knew exactly what he was talking about. They never forgot, as that could have very easily been any one of them.

In fact, women can’t forget. It quite literally can cost us our lives. Every precaution we’re forced to take is still a double edged-sword, as somewhere in this world, there will always be someone who isn’t lucky enough.

No matter how careful we are with our drinks, no matter how many self-defense classes we take, no matter how much life we’re forced to cut back on, there are still always close calls and even if it wasn’t me that time, it was someone else.

From young ages, women are taught to be careful. Inherently, this isn’t a bad thing, but when I’m supposed to choose between my safety and living my life to the fullest like men can, it becomes suffocating.

Always fearful. Always looking over my shoulder. Always second guessing every interaction with men because you never know when something can turn deadly- you’d be surprised how fast things can escalate when you’re a female.

But at what point does teaching women how to protect themselves turn into creating a scapegoat? Why should women solely be taught to change themselves, shrink themselves for their own safety? Why must we choose?

The answer isn’t simple: victim-blaming to shaming women for their sexuality to not holding men and boys accountable all play a role. These factors combine to create a systemic form of oppression every woman will face at some point in her life, no matter how careful she is. Rape culture.

I once saw a post that always comes to mind when discussing rape culture. The post read, “For men, being drunk excuses anything they do. For women, being drunk excuses anything done to us.” Rape

culture is as simple as this double standard, and is quite clear to see once one stops letting society fool them into thinking their knee-jerk reaction to place blame is right.

Understanding rape culture, and thus understanding power dynamics, is truly simple if you just listen to women. Listen to our stories, our struggles, our hopes. It’s exhausting to act as a search engine all the time, however, so we can’t do this alone- stand with us as we struggle through daily occurrences.

Educate yourself on terminology and what women really go through, even when it seems like ‘just another headline’ to you, for we see ourselves in these headlines. And please, do not try to explain how women should react to something you’ve never experienced. Don’t police our feelings- society already does this enough and wonders why women are so angry.

Before someone inevitably responds to this with “but what about male rape victims?”, let me make this clear: that’s for another article at another time. Derailing an argument won’t support yours- it just proves to women that you aren’t listening to what we have to say.

If society, particularly men, doesn’t start wholly listening to women, there will be more headlines, and with every headline will be another girl, fearful of the future of harassment that lies before her, as I am one of those girls now. This needs to end.

We, as a society, cannot seriously believe that teaching women precautionary measures will lower sexual assault rates (1 in 6 American women has experienced an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime- let that sink in).

We must educate our boys on consent- instead of teaching girls not to get raped, teach boys not to rape. This sounds overly simple, but then again, many are unclear on what actually constitutes as rape, which leads to another problem- sex education in schools.

Listen to women who speak on their experiences with harassment, and take measures to eradicate such behavior.

We need to protect our women, supporting them in court instead of ingraining into our girls that the boy who yanks her hair just has a crush on her. We need to stop normalizing behavior like this, for chasing a girl on the playground will only lead to chasing a girl into bed.

It pains me that these words have already been written in so many ways, yet still no one listens. My own experiences, combined with those of the women who I am close to and those who are merely strangers, are forever ingrained into my mind.

Each of those stories describing yet another sexual assault or harassment case on the news nowadays? They only make me think one thing: that could have been me.

A few days ago, my father brought home “Surviving Jersey,” a book written by a high school classmate about his experiences growing up in Long Valley, New Jersey. As my dad talked about how the memories were all rushing back to him, one part in particular stood out to me- when Rachel Domas, at just 14, was randomly abducted on her way home from school in 1985.

When Sanders reached out to his former classmates about the incident, he mentioned how every guy he spoke to had trouble recalling the abduction- even my dad too had forgotten about it. But every girl Sanders spoke with knew exactly what he was talking about. They never forgot, as that could have very easily been any one of them.

In fact, women can’t forget. It quite literally can cost us our lives. Every precaution we’re forced to take is still a double edged-sword, as somewhere in this world, there will always be someone who isn’t lucky enough.

No matter how careful we are with our drinks, no matter how many self-defense classes we take, no matter how much life we’re forced to cut back on, there are still always close calls and even if it wasn’t me that time, it was someone else.

From young ages, women are taught to be careful. Inherently, this isn’t a bad thing, but when I’m supposed to choose between my safety and living my life to the fullest like men can, it becomes suffocating.

Always fearful. Always looking over my shoulder. Always second guessing every interaction with men because you never know when something can turn deadly- you’d be surprised how fast things can escalate when you’re a female.

But at what point does teaching women how to protect themselves turn into creating a scapegoat? Why should women solely be taught to change themselves, shrink themselves for their own safety? Why must we choose?

The answer isn’t simple: victim-blaming to shaming women for their sexuality to not holding men and boys accountable all play a role. These factors combine to create a systemic form of oppression every woman will face at some point in her life, no matter how careful she is. Rape culture.

I once saw a post that always comes to mind when discussing rape culture. The post read, “For men, being drunk excuses anything they do. For women, being drunk excuses anything done to us.” Rape

culture is as simple as this double standard, and is quite clear to see once one stops letting society fool them into thinking their knee-jerk reaction to place blame is right.

Understanding rape culture, and thus understanding power dynamics, is truly simple if you just listen to women. Listen to our stories, our struggles, our hopes. It’s exhausting to act as a search engine all the time, however, so we can’t do this alone- stand with us as we struggle through daily occurrences.

Educate yourself on terminology and what women really go through, even when it seems like ‘just another headline’ to you, for we see ourselves in these headlines. And please, do not try to explain how women should react to something you’ve never experienced. Don’t police our feelings- society already does this enough and wonders why women are so angry.

Before someone inevitably responds to this with “but what about male rape victims?”, let me make this clear: that’s for another article at another time. Derailing an argument won’t support yours- it just proves to women that you aren’t listening to what we have to say.

If society, particularly men, doesn’t start wholly listening to women, there will be more headlines, and with every headline will be another girl, fearful of the future of harassment that lies before her, as I am one of those girls now. This needs to end.

We, as a society, cannot seriously believe that teaching women precautionary measures will lower sexual assault rates (1 in 6 American women has experienced an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime- let that sink in).

We must educate our boys on consent- instead of teaching girls not to get raped, teach boys not to rape. This sounds overly simple, but then again, many are unclear on what actually constitutes as rape, which leads to another problem- sex education in schools.

Listen to women who speak on their experiences with harassment, and take measures to eradicate such behavior.

We need to protect our women, supporting them in court instead of ingraining into our girls that the boy who yanks her hair just has a crush on her. We need to stop normalizing behavior like this, for chasing a girl on the playground will only lead to chasing a girl into bed.