Empowering Women (AKA Wisdom from My Spin Instructor)

Here’s the deal. Whether you support Hillary or Trump, hate Bill Clinton, call Hillary names to add insult to injury…approximately 23% of college age girls will experience some form of sexual assault. I’m sure if we extrapolated this number beyond dorm rooms and campuses and looked across the entire country and age demos, the holistic statistic would both astonish and anger us (beyond what many of us already feel).

Many more women live in silence than speak out about their experiences. And their reasons for doing so belong to them and are no one’s business. It’s damn difficult. There’s a certain amount of shame, perhaps even guilt, involved. Or it happened by the hands of a family member or friend. Kindred bonds are a difficult thing to tarnish or break. There are so many reasons that are as varied as our personal experiences.

But I don’t want to keep talking about assault. It’s disgusting and deplorable and anyone who thinks even joking about it is liken to “locker room talk” is guilty by association. Yes, desensitizing yourself to human experiences in the name of your “beliefs” or party association or mitigating them to dirt means you are perpetuating the problem.

What I want to talk about today, though, is empowerment. I want to talk about something my spin teacher said in class that totally switched my mindset, from defeatist to conqueror. She told us that if we’re on a date with a guy and he’s disrespectful to us the whole time (on his phone, not making eye contact, doesn’t pay the bill, half, or even offer to, etc) and we still go home with him (which trust me, a guy who acts like this expects that you will), we are sending the message to him and the world that we don’t respect ourselves, and will in turn continue to be disrespected.

I’m engaged to a wonderful man who respects women, and thankfully (and hopefully) will never have to experience that sort of mistreatment again. But I remember it well. And my spin teacher is absolutely right. She wasn’t implying that our experiences don’t matter. Her whole point was that we owe it to ourselves to value the person staring back at us in the mirror. We can’t control the actions and words of others, but we can control ours.

If someone disrespects you, it’s ok to speak up. You don’t need to be silent. You don’t need to let people take advantage of you. And if someone does — if someone violates your boundaries or makes you feel uncomfortable; if someone abuses you — it is YOUR RIGHT to fight back — protect yourself, defend your personal boundaries and rights and call out bad behavior. Seek support of you need it. I understand it’s not always easy or immediately possible to do these things. But you should know it’s ok to. And that you’re not alone.

Don’t let men like Trump and the D list actors that support him own the conversation and get away with treating women like crap.

Let your voice be known on November 8th. Our body parts belong to us.