The other night, apres-ski, a group of friends sat next to a fire debating the future of our girls, when rape is still just as prevalent and there are girls as young as 12 and 13 who feel peer-pressure to perform sexual acts to boys at parties.
As parents, during our debate, we reflected back on our own histories.
What was our experience? What did we do? How did we avoid danger or just barely get out of a bad situation? Were we lucky or was it less prevalent then? Is the media shining a light on what’s always been, or does the media itself propagate misogynistic behavior?
The point that I keep coming back to in my mind is, how many of us, as women, feel “lucky” that we weren’t raped. And then I think, “Wait. Were we lucky, or were we just more humane”? And then finally, “Why does luck have anything to do with it? If we think we are lucky, then we are almost admitting that the culture of rape is the normal behavior and we are the exceptions”.
Big groan.
As agents and leaders, we cannot constantly compare our past to what is becoming a brutal future for all girls, expecting that this is normal behavior. We can lead the way to change this behavior. And in my mind, we can’t sit by idly. We need to act.
If porn-addiction is on the rise for middle-school boys, if sex counselors exist on college campuses to retrain boys on what healthy sex actually is, contrary to every porn movie they’ve seen, and if rape on college campuses is still prevalent (forget whether it’s more or just more mainstream media), then clearly we need to LEAD as mentors, guardians and co-parents, looking out for one another’s child if we are not making the message clear that no means no, drunk, inappropriately dressed (no thanks to short skirts or too much make-up) or not.
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