For most of my life I believed things like sexism and racism were all in the past. I beleived they had all gone away after females gained the right to vote and slavery was made illegal. As I grew up I learned quickly how wrong I was. With all of the recent shootings that have occurred throughout the United States, racism in todays’ world has been a very talked about topic. But what about sexism? Sexism is still very much real and intertwined with our everyday lives in ways we probably don’t notice, in ways that I didn’t even notice until I actually started to think about it.

As a girl my parents always taught me, especially before going to college, never accept an open drink from a stranger, don’t walk alone at night, keep your phone close and your mace closer. These never struck me as lessons specifically for girls until I got to college and realized you never really saw pepper spray hanging off a guys lanyard. Sexism is so engraved into our ways of thinking we don’t even notice it is there anymore. Entire songs are written solely about a girl from the neck down and its called a love song. Pictures of half naked girls are normal things to find in a guys bedroom. I hear women being referred to as objects to “nail”, “bang” and “screw” all the time. Inside I know this isn’t how I ever have wanted to be viewed as by a boy but I don’t say anything, why?

I could name more than one occasion at parties or clubs where guys have tried talking to me, flirting with me, slowly getting more and more comfortable, attempting to put their hands on me. Every time I pushed them away though, I felt the need to say I’m sorry before I told them to stop. I wasn’t sorry, it was just an innate response automated inside of me, like on some level I knew the whole conversation that they only wanted one thing from me, and I had to apologize for not giving it to them. The first time I was referred to as a bitch I was in third grade, building a snowman with my friends in a backyard. The first time a man in a truck slowed down on the street to yell out of his car and call me and my friends sluts, I was a freshman in high school.

During my freshman year of college my boyfriend at the time got mad at me for wearing a crop top to a party. He said he trusted me but he knew how other guys would look at me if I wore this. He said it was only okay to wear in front of him, as if it was okay for him to view me as meat because he was dating me. Why should I have to cover up myself or change my favorite outfits so boys don’t get the wrong idea? Why can’t I wear what I want to and have guys respect me as a human being still? While I believe in my argument wholeheartedly, it’s still a hard argument to try and make.

Most days I still don’t say anything when I see these things happening around me.

I was at a Halloween party with my boyfriend Junior year of high school. There was this guy there who was trying to get with anything that remotely looked like a female. He picked me up and carried me into the bathroom and shut the door. He continued to try and grab at me. I shoved him to the floor and ran as fast as I could. When I proceeded to tell my boyfriend at the time about this, he just laughed and shrugged it off. So I just laughed and shrugged it off too. I wonder sometimes if by doing this I am as guilty to this continuation of sexism as the guys who keep it alive with their words, or lack there of.

I have known many people who I am close to that have stories much worse than mine on ways they have been objectified by men and it absolutely breaks my heart. Yet I realize, this is what boys are being taught is okay. I’ve seen a fifteen year old boy made fun of because he was a virgin, guys being teased when they talk too romantically about their girlfriends. When trying to explain this to my guy friends I always feel the need to say, “not you, you’re a good guy,” even if I had seen them talk in ways that aren’t okay. Females have to sugar coat their arguments in an attempt to be heard. We have to find a way to make it easier for guys to hear about these things, than it is for us to have to live through them. The reality is though, it’s not pretty. There is no sugar coating your ass getting grabbed an upwards of five times every time you go out, by guys with faces you wouldn’t recognize if you saw again. It’s not fun hearing the female gender being referred to like slabs of meat on a table, only useful for consumption.

In case you still don’t think sexism is a problem however, let’s talk about the facts. Women today still only earn around 77 percent of what males earn doing the same jobs. Four out of every five victims of human trafficking are woman. 30 percent of women report they have been in some form of an abusive relationship. Worldwide women ages 15 to 44 are at a higher risk of rape than they are of cancer, car accidents, war, and malaria. One in every five women on a college campus will experience sexual assault. One in three woman worldwide have experience sexual violence. These aren’t statistics from years ago, these are statistics gathered in the past two years. Do you understand now?

I speak for all woman when I say this, I am more than what my body can do for you. My sex is mine, not yours to attach a rhyme and a metaphor to and call romantic, my body is not yours to post on your wall and fantasize about, my mouth has more than one use, and I should not have to cover up my body so guys don’t view it as public property. I am a woman down to the bones and I am strong and my opinion has meaning and I am done putting my head down and saying I’m sorry.