MY STORY IS EVERY WOMAN'S STORY
I was sexually assaulted when I was 20 years old. It happened during a summer that I spent studying abroad in Spain. That day started off like any other. I was going to meet up with the study abroad group to go on a weekend trip to another town. I was running late, and while something did feel off on that day I never expected what would transpire next to happen to me.
I got on the subway system so that I could get downtown to where we were meeting. About halfway through the journey I noticed that a man was staring at me. I looked over and than looked way. I couldn't really tell initially what he was doing, but then I realized he was masturbating. I moved further away and stood next to the subway door next to another man who at least appeared to be harmless.
As I got off the subway, I walked quickly trying to get away as far from this man as possible, but having no idea that he had in fact followed me. I thought he has stayed on the subway system after I had gotten off. Turns out he didn't. The next thing I know he is behind me on the escalator and after that all I know is he is grabbing every part of my body that he can. I than hit him with this bag I was holding which had my lunch that my house mom had packed for me. She had decided to freeze one of the plastic water bottles so that it would stay cold throughout much of the day, and it had turned the whole thing into a frozen tundra of ice. I swung it at him as hard as I could hitting him across the face and screaming obscenities along the lines of "Don't you ever fucking touch my body." As I did that he seemed to move past me and i thought he ran out of the subway.
As I tried to get away, he came up behind me and did it again, grabbing me everywhere. The way he attacked me I could tell that he had done this a lot before. I did the same thing I had just done, I swung that water bottle as hard as I could smacking him across the face and screaming again at him. At that point I managed to get a little bit ahead of him and I realized he is not going to stop until he manages to rape me. I did the only thing I felt I could do at that point. I just started screaming as loud and as high as I could hoping that someone would hear me. It must've startled him enough, because he ran in the opposite direction and I managed to get out of the subway system onto the street.
I than ran towards the meeting place we were suppose to meet up at, and in my state of shock I told a few of the girls that this man had just attacked me, and given that I was shaking uncontrollably they were really concerned. They went and got the two people who ran our program, and they came over to talk to me. In my state of confusion, I just kept thinking okay now we have to go to the police so that they can catch him. Instead what came out of their mouths was "Well, it's too late now, where ever he is he's gotten away. You're just gonna have to get over it." Even I was shocked by what this man was saying to me. I figured I would at least get to go to the police station before the victim-blaming began, I didn't know I wouldn't even get a chance to make it that far.
I spent the entire weekend in a complete haze as well as the rest of the few weeks I had left in Spain. They eventually did after much protesting on my part, take me to a location where I was finally able to tell someone my story. It was some sort of women's rights group from what I could tell, and they made me look a giant binder full of pictures of men who I guess were sexual predators or who had attacked other women on the subway. I didn't really understand what this place was, but they at least seemed somewhat sympathetic.
I wasn't the only one who was attacked while in Barcelona. A lot of the women had men grab them when they were walking past them, and one of my friends had to fight off three guys with her shoe after they tried to gang rape her. We also had another woman on our trip leave after she disappeared for a few days, only to be found wandering around the downtown area, missing both her shoes and her purse and having no recollection of who she was. We demanded that the program directors tell us what had happened to her, but they refused, and after they found her she left a few days later to go home, before she could tell us what happened. I'm positive she was gang-raped and possibly drugged and kidnapped.
After I returned home from Spain, I feel into a deep depression and turned to constant drinking, and drugs to deal with it. Ultimately, there wasn't anyone for me to blame other than myself, because no one would let me hold that man responsible for what he had done to me. And he managed to take everything away from me, it made me just want to die. It's probably no surprise than that the next relationship I ended up in turned out to be very abusive. I felt like I deserved it, and it seemed that I just needed to accept that this is what my life was going to be like as a woman, because I had no one on my side and every time you face abuse as a woman in our culture or in the world you are blamed for it.
This victim-blaming starts from the time you are little in which the whole world tells you that you need to avoid being raped, not that rapists shouldn't be allowed to rape. When you do try to fight back like I did, you find yourself once again being victimized. Every system in our world has been created by men, for men so that they will always have the upper hand, and it's run by the same men who abuse us. Everyone from Judges, lawyers, police officers a lot of them are rapists, abusers and misogynists themselves, so trying to get them to help you, and to hold the "bad men" responsible becomes impossible when those same exact men we need protection from, are the same ones running everything that is suppose to protect us.
While this made me not want to travel pretty much ever again, and I've only been out of the country once since this happened. It's not like you need to go abroad to be victimized. I don't know any woman who isn't a rape or other forms of sexual abuse survivor, and I don't know any woman who hasn't been the victim of domestic violence at the hands of at least one if not multiple men.
I honestly don't know what you guys as men are trying to accomplish. But if your goal has been to destroy the feminine and to make women feel like shit then I can say you definitely accomplished it. I hope that makes each of you feel like big, strong, powerful men, although it won't change the fact that the majority of you guys are nothing more than bullies. And eventually, bullies always end up getting exactly what is coming to them.
I got on the subway system so that I could get downtown to where we were meeting. About halfway through the journey I noticed that a man was staring at me. I looked over and than looked way. I couldn't really tell initially what he was doing, but then I realized he was masturbating. I moved further away and stood next to the subway door next to another man who at least appeared to be harmless.
As I got off the subway, I walked quickly trying to get away as far from this man as possible, but having no idea that he had in fact followed me. I thought he has stayed on the subway system after I had gotten off. Turns out he didn't. The next thing I know he is behind me on the escalator and after that all I know is he is grabbing every part of my body that he can. I than hit him with this bag I was holding which had my lunch that my house mom had packed for me. She had decided to freeze one of the plastic water bottles so that it would stay cold throughout much of the day, and it had turned the whole thing into a frozen tundra of ice. I swung it at him as hard as I could hitting him across the face and screaming obscenities along the lines of "Don't you ever fucking touch my body." As I did that he seemed to move past me and i thought he ran out of the subway.
As I tried to get away, he came up behind me and did it again, grabbing me everywhere. The way he attacked me I could tell that he had done this a lot before. I did the same thing I had just done, I swung that water bottle as hard as I could smacking him across the face and screaming again at him. At that point I managed to get a little bit ahead of him and I realized he is not going to stop until he manages to rape me. I did the only thing I felt I could do at that point. I just started screaming as loud and as high as I could hoping that someone would hear me. It must've startled him enough, because he ran in the opposite direction and I managed to get out of the subway system onto the street.
I than ran towards the meeting place we were suppose to meet up at, and in my state of shock I told a few of the girls that this man had just attacked me, and given that I was shaking uncontrollably they were really concerned. They went and got the two people who ran our program, and they came over to talk to me. In my state of confusion, I just kept thinking okay now we have to go to the police so that they can catch him. Instead what came out of their mouths was "Well, it's too late now, where ever he is he's gotten away. You're just gonna have to get over it." Even I was shocked by what this man was saying to me. I figured I would at least get to go to the police station before the victim-blaming began, I didn't know I wouldn't even get a chance to make it that far.
I spent the entire weekend in a complete haze as well as the rest of the few weeks I had left in Spain. They eventually did after much protesting on my part, take me to a location where I was finally able to tell someone my story. It was some sort of women's rights group from what I could tell, and they made me look a giant binder full of pictures of men who I guess were sexual predators or who had attacked other women on the subway. I didn't really understand what this place was, but they at least seemed somewhat sympathetic.
I wasn't the only one who was attacked while in Barcelona. A lot of the women had men grab them when they were walking past them, and one of my friends had to fight off three guys with her shoe after they tried to gang rape her. We also had another woman on our trip leave after she disappeared for a few days, only to be found wandering around the downtown area, missing both her shoes and her purse and having no recollection of who she was. We demanded that the program directors tell us what had happened to her, but they refused, and after they found her she left a few days later to go home, before she could tell us what happened. I'm positive she was gang-raped and possibly drugged and kidnapped.
After I returned home from Spain, I feel into a deep depression and turned to constant drinking, and drugs to deal with it. Ultimately, there wasn't anyone for me to blame other than myself, because no one would let me hold that man responsible for what he had done to me. And he managed to take everything away from me, it made me just want to die. It's probably no surprise than that the next relationship I ended up in turned out to be very abusive. I felt like I deserved it, and it seemed that I just needed to accept that this is what my life was going to be like as a woman, because I had no one on my side and every time you face abuse as a woman in our culture or in the world you are blamed for it.
This victim-blaming starts from the time you are little in which the whole world tells you that you need to avoid being raped, not that rapists shouldn't be allowed to rape. When you do try to fight back like I did, you find yourself once again being victimized. Every system in our world has been created by men, for men so that they will always have the upper hand, and it's run by the same men who abuse us. Everyone from Judges, lawyers, police officers a lot of them are rapists, abusers and misogynists themselves, so trying to get them to help you, and to hold the "bad men" responsible becomes impossible when those same exact men we need protection from, are the same ones running everything that is suppose to protect us.
While this made me not want to travel pretty much ever again, and I've only been out of the country once since this happened. It's not like you need to go abroad to be victimized. I don't know any woman who isn't a rape or other forms of sexual abuse survivor, and I don't know any woman who hasn't been the victim of domestic violence at the hands of at least one if not multiple men.
I honestly don't know what you guys as men are trying to accomplish. But if your goal has been to destroy the feminine and to make women feel like shit then I can say you definitely accomplished it. I hope that makes each of you feel like big, strong, powerful men, although it won't change the fact that the majority of you guys are nothing more than bullies. And eventually, bullies always end up getting exactly what is coming to them.
