I could hear the snickering and whispers as soon as I walked into the party. They all knew what happened a few nights before. He was bragging about it, but what could I do besides pretend it didn't faze me? I might as well have been wearing a giant scarlet A on my shirt because that’s exactly how I felt. The only difference between Hester Prynne and me, though, is that she is responsible for what she did. I wasn’t.
One in five women will be sexually assaulted during their time in college. This is a statistic that is thrown in the faces of college students everywhere, but it doesn’t seem to faze a single one. The fact of the matter is, it’s not going to. You’re not going to ever understand the severity of this until you become part of that 20 percent.
Society is obsessed with “slut shaming” young women. The term “slut shaming” is so powerful because it not only objectifies women, but it puts blame on them. If a girl gets pregnant, it’s because she’s easy. If a girl gets raped, it’s because her dress was too short or she got too drunk. Men are playing the victims in this screwed up reality and it’s not fair. It’s not fair that he gets to walk around with the thousands of other rapists while we’re stuck here getting mentally abused by ourselves and society.
You want to blame yourself. Maybe your skirt was a little short and your shirt was a little too tight. Maybe you were flirting and you gave him the wrong idea. It’s your fault that he took advantage of you while you were passed out at that party because you're the one who got too drunk. In fact, you’re just easy and you were asking for it. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. This is the problem we have. It’s always our fault and we somehow deserve to suffer the psychological consequences of it all.
Well, guess what. We don’t.
We don’t deserve to have the blame on us for this. We don’t deserve to hate ourselves or feel worthless or alone. No one knows what it feels like to go through all of that psychological damage until this happens to them. Until they become part of the statistic. It feels like no else understands, but there are girls out there just like you and me that do.
You are not alone in this. You are not a victim, you are a survivor.
