Girls walk wherever the heck you want, but…
I live in a university town located not far from Harrisburg. Although is a very safe place to live, often, residents receive texts messages reporting possible threats to the community. The most common warnings are those related to sex offenses/assaults. In this part of the country you will barely find murder, thievery, or any other type of felony. We live very secure here. Sometimes, I even park my car, leave the key inside and shop. After all my errands, I get back to my car -that is open- and find everything intact. Some cases, however, hit the boundaries of our peace involving -most of the time- young students where females are the principal victims. I should add right here that I believe women have the same rights the other gender has. Moreover, I have a teenager daughter who is the center of my furious feminism, to whom I teach how to find a position in the society and be recognized as a good citizen with right morals and good actions, to live happily engaged in the community we live. Withal, I find really awkward after the tragedy of the murder of the two young Argentinian students in Ecuador, whom by the way were beaten to death, that social media claims the right women have to travel alone, wear naked clothes, enter dangerous places and other bunch of things more, just because they have the right to. Certainly, we do. I do not argue our right to feel free and travel, nor our right to wear our skin as apparels. But, seriously, where is our duty of conscience and common sense? Should we teach our daughters to walk throughout a cage full of predators because they have a right to?
I would never tell my daughter to go swim in the private beach because it belongs to our property while I know the area is full of sharks. Moreover, I would prevent her from that fact. Also, I would not tell my little girl to walk through the mountains if I know the guerrilla is surrounding the area, would I? I am the parent, I have the duty to teach my children to analyse where are they going to be, with whom, what activities to exercise that are safe enough to them.
And yes, yes, they have the right. I am not arguing they don’t. I am just wondering if at some point, we, parents, teach our kids to weight the circumstances life brings along the way. If the case we try to make stating loudly that our daughters have the right to walk wherever they want, why don’t we think our boys have the exact same right? because it is implied or because we do recognize that men are less susceptible to become victims of predators? and if we know the society where we live, why don’t we protect our children? why don’t we warn them of the chaos? Instead, we fight a battle in the wrong way to fight. More or less, an analogy would be to tell a tourist to visit Syria because they are allowed to go, and regardless of the conflict, once they get a visa, they have a right to be there. Of course they have a right to be there. I don’t think, however, they will be safe. So, easiest to hang a list of dangerous countries in the department of state’s website and warn the tourist how difficult will be to save them if they decide to take a trip near ISIS.
I was deeply sad with the news of those two girls. I remained muted for a while; I could not stop thinking about that last minute of their lives; whether they fought for their lives or gave up to their dreams and hopes… I considered in my head the questions everybody asked and was sanctioned to ask. I cringed myself and thought how unfair I was to ask those questions. After a few moments I realized that I was perfectly allowed to ask why were they traveling alone? and if it was it a dangerous place?…. yesss! I can ask because the way this works is to analyse what was done wrongly and fix it, prevent it, be prepared of and aware of. I want my children to be safe, oh my gosh, yes!, I do! I want them to understand that the perfect world is an utopian place. I do not want them to believe that because they have the right to vote, their candidate will win; that because they have the right to marry whoever they want, they won’t be judge. Life is cruel, but we make it more cruel when we just voice our rights and we do nothing to get them. Instead, we should teach our daughters self-defense and prepare them for a dangerous situation; Give them the tools to defend themselves. Take them to get instructed in how to shoot a gun.
In my recent trip to Israel, I was very surprised to see those Israeli girls holding a SMG. I inquired about it, the answer was expected. Women in Israel have the duty to military service. I was not shocked about it; Surprisingly, I thought that is the way to make our females bigger and better.
Retaking my comments in regards to the texts informing the community of possible threats, I read each one of the messages I have received the last few months. All of them, without exception have this in common:
- Victim was a female;
- Incident occurred at late night hours;
- In a fraternity house, student halls;
- Victimizer was a male (both know and unknown).
If you want to check for yourselves, here is the link: http://timely-warnings.police.psu.edu/university-park
So, I am wondering, how many more victims are we going to have before we realize that we send our children to school and we remain at home thinking they are studying, instead they are in the wrong place, at the wrong time and with the wrong person?
We want our kids to be safe. Let’s teach them to be safe. Let’s teach them to defend themselves, and then to stand for themselves. We cannot victimize the victimizer, that is for sure. But, we need to prepare our children to prevent situations that they are not ready to face. If we want our kids free, let’s teach them how to survive.
