The people in my family live in two completely different worlds. This may sound strange, but it is mirrored in most, if not all, other families. My mom and I live in one world, my dad and brothers in one completely different. This isn't through any fault of ours directly; rather, it is a fault of the society we live in.
The best example of the difference in these worlds happened a few months ago, when I was home on Christmas break. One brother was at band rehearsal and my parents were with the other at a Boy Scout dinner, leaving me home alone. I was curled up on the chair in the living room watching "Criminal Minds," my favorite TV show, and asked my parents when Ben would be home. When asked why I wanted to know, I explained that I was watching "Criminal Minds" and didn't want to be freaked out when the door opened (that show always makes me a little jumpy). My dad took this as an opportunity to try and scare me, so he texted his brother and told him to call the house phone and ask in a creepy voice if I was home alone. My mom was horrified, trying to talk my dad out of it. Luckily, my uncle didn't call -- I was a teenage girl home alone at night and if a strange male voice had asked that, my first response would have been to call the police, something my mom understood but my dad didn't. To him, it was just a joke. To me -- to my mom, to countless other women -- it would have been something straight out of a nightmare.
The world of women is one that men could never imagine living in. Some will say that we're cowards, that only men can be brave, but they don't understand how much bravery and courage is required to go through day-to-day life being female; how much we have to go through because the world isn't safe for us like it is for them. How we're constantly looking over our shoulders. How we're taught to hold our keys between our fingers and walk fast. How we go to the bathroom in groups -- they tease about it, but there's safety in numbers. How we have to lock car doors as soon as we get inside in case a man tries to follow us in. How being catcalled is a fact of life and it demeans us, makes us no more than objects that they can leer at, but we learn to keep our heads up and pretend not to hear them. How we are deemed responsible for our own assaults and rapes, because we live in a broken system where people would far rather ruin the life of a haunted and terrified victim who doesn't want, never wanted, any of this than ruin the life of the star athlete or good student or upstanding community member who raped her.
We live in a world where more rapes aren't reported than are, because there's always some way to twist the story to make it the victim's fault. We live in a world where before going out, we have to check what we're wearing to make sure that our clothes don't make it look like we're "asking for it," where we have to tell a friend where and when and what and every last detail just in case we don't make it home. We live in a world where our clothes say "yes" even when our mouths say "no."
We live in a glass cage, one we peer out of to watch males being judged by their talents while we are judged by our looks. Where we can watch men getting off completely free for crimes against us because our skirts were too short or we had been drinking. Where there can be one female character to five males and we're told we have our representation. Where we look at numbers that tell us less than 10 percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are female and we're told to be glad we have even that many. Where we can make 75 cents to a dollar men make and we should just be glad we're getting even that. A glass cage from where we have to watch our own oppression and get mocked and attacked for resisting it.
I live in a world of fear and oppression that my brothers will never have to experience. A world in which we are told that we have enough, that we should be happy with what little men are willing to hand us. A world in which anyone who tries to make a difference "hates men" or is "just on her period" or any other pitiful excuse they make to try and keep us down.
Yes, there are two very different worlds, and it's pretty much exclusively women who can see the divide. But walk a day in my shoes, learn how the world looks through different eyes, and try and fix things.
