On being a woman who takes no shit.

There's been a lot of talk of misogyny in this last week after the terrible Santa Barbara shootings and the crazed rants/manifesto of the entitled fuck who did it (I don't remember his name and don't care to).

I do care about the victims.

WEIHAN WANG - The tearful mother said her only son was supposed to come home to Fremont for the summer, go on a family vacation to Yellowstone National Park and celebrate his 21st birthday in July. The station said the father, Charlie Wang, could only stand in the doorway, hugging his wife and uttering deep, guttural cries. Wang, 20, and his parents immigrated to the country from China ten years ago. He graduated from Fremont Christian School and was studying computer engineering at UC Santa Barbara.
Liu called her son "the joy of the family," someone who aced his SATs and never bragged about it.
"I wish I could go in exchange of my son's life," she said. "I'm just heartbroken. You can't imagine for a mom."

CHENG YUAN HONG - Hong, 20, was a hard-working and bright student who was always willing to help others. "James was shy, quiet, gentle, sweet, kind and most respectful," Laurel Cohen told the San Jose Mercury News on Monday. "Not someone who easily could engage in conversation. But I remember his earnest nature, conviction, honesty and mostly his smile; it lit up a room."

GEORGE CHEN - "We would die a hundred times, a thousand times, but we don't want our kids to get hurt," Chen's mother, Kelly Wang, said as she fought through tears. "This shouldn't happen to any family. This should be the last one in the United States."A family friend said Chen, 19, was a gentle soul who had a fondness for working with children.

KATHERINE BREANN COOPER - Her friend Courtney Benjamin said Cooper, 22, was a painter with an outgoing side. Known as Katie, she was about to graduate with a degree in art history.
"She was a self-proclaimed princess and I love her for that," Benjamin said. "And I know she has a crown on her head today."

CHRISTOPHER ROSS MICHAELS-MARTINEZ - Michaels-Martinez, 20, was an English major from Los Osos, California. The son of a criminal defense attorney and a deputy district attorney in San Luis Obispo, he planned to spend his junior year in London next year and to law school after graduation, his father, Richard Martinez, said. Friends said Michaels-Martinez, who served as residential adviser at a dorm last year, was the kind of guy who would welcome strangers into his home.

VERONIKA ELIZABETH WEISS - Weiss, 19, was first-year student from Westlake Village, California.
Her father Bob Weiss told the Los Angeles Times his daughter was a tomboy who played four sports at Westlake High School — cross country, baseball, swimming and water polo — while earning straight A's. Her strength was math. "There was never a day I wasn't proud of her. Never a single day," he said.

Their deaths have caused a lot of discussion; beyond the perpetual gun debate, it's gone to the deeper causes of hatred that would spawn such a tragedy. Most of recent American mass killings had perpetrators that suffered from some kind of long-standing mental disorder (although definitely not all); this one was bitter misogynistic. 1 in 6 women are the victims of sexual assault in the US, and while I've never considered myself a victim, I realize that technically I have been. It came up in discussion with one of Sam's friends last week; he's new to this whole women-are-equals concept, and has been trying to educate himself on feminism. Out of nowhere, I explained the following, which I never realized I believed:

"Look, women are taught to be victims before we're taught to be individuals. I was raised by a single mom who was molested at 5. As soon as I was taught to pull up my panties by myself, I was taught to never take them down for anyone. Ever. Before I went into kindegarten and had to get my shots, the nurse said, 'Okay honey, pull down your panties, I have to give your shots' and I completely lost my shit. I was so beserk, it took 2 other nurses, a doctor, and my mom to hold me down, and I bit my mom so hard she was bruised for a month. That set the tone for my life. As soon as I realized I couldn't run from danger, I learned to punch. I've fought one girl ever, and I was 8. Every other fight has been with men who thought they had a RIGHT to me. As if I was property. As if I didn't have a fucking say in ANYTHING. And they paid for it, either with shame or pain. They felt my 'say', I'm sure for weeks. People marvel at that...when most smart women run, from the bar, to their car, whatever, I turn around and face that threat head on. It's why I rarely go to bars anymore, or concerts. I'm not conventionally attractive by any means, and I'm intimidating in terms of height and weight, and men STILL grab at me, and call me a cunt when I turn away. Then it escalates. For the average woman, it's after they learn to stop being ONLY a victim that we learn to become an individual, which is why, I believe, most have that identity crisis in their late teens/early 20s instead of early teenage years, like a lot of men."

I've been grabbed, yelled at, threatened. I've stopped men from trying to roofie a friend's drink at Vault Martini Bar in Redlands (which is why I avoid ALL OF THOSE FUCKING BARS...the entitled trash of Redlands cause an intrinsic higher level of risk than any ghetto dive bar I've ever been to), and got into a big ol' screaming fight that almost went to blows when I called him on it. I've had my breasts and butt grabbed at almost every concert I've been to, I've been hit on at bars; when I politely decline or laugh at the ballsiness of the line they start name-calling. Naturally, if they say something about looks or weight, I laugh harder and go along the thought of: "NICE and you JUST HIT ON ME?! Someone you think is fat and ugly? WAY TO BE PATHETIC!" etc. If they stand up to try and tower over, the shock on their faces when I don't back down is as surprising as their pick-up method. If they'd said anything along those lines to a man, there would OF COURSE be repercussions. If they heard a man saying that to their mom, future-wife, sister, or daughter, they'd go ballistic. So why, I wonder, is it acceptable for them to say it to someone else mother/partner/sister/daughter? It defies all logic, and underlies one of the fundamental inequalities facing women across the globe: we are not individuals to society. If we don't actively belong to someone next to us (these incidences almost never happen if I'm with a male friend), we don't belong to anyone and are up for grabs. Like a mining claim; if no one is there, stake it...the mine is just there to give and has no say.

I'm a gold mine FOR ASS KICKING, MOTHERFUCKERS.

My worst nightmare (and this is truly something that haunts me) is being held down in an alleyway by a group of men and having no power. I usually take down one or two, but the rest exact fierce retribution because of it, and I wake up as I'm dying. I've told a few women friends that nightmare, and they always nod in understanding: it's a common fear with most of us. Some of them have said, "Doesn't that make you want to stop being aggressive and just carry pepper spray?" And the answer has been a resounding NO. Absolutely not. I refuse to silently take it, because that shock and horror in their eyes is worth that courage. When I ask them, "Would you let a man talk to your sister that way, or your daughter?" a spark of cognition can be seen, and possibly saving another woman from the fear of this man callously approaching her warrants the risk.

Yes, I'm a human. Yes, I have a say. Yes, I have people who love me (and even if I didn't, like the many women who are adrift in our society without a base and are unsurprisingly the worst victims of assault). Yes, I'm a woman. All of these things mean that I am not, contrary to Mother Culture, up for grabs to the first man who gropes or crudely propositions me. Really, when has "I'd tear that ass UP" ever worked as a pickup line?!

So, while I cannot change how men the world-over view us women, I sure as shit don't let them get away with it. And that, my darlings, is all I'm saying - always try and keep yourself safe, this goes without saying - but when faced with the disfigured face of misogyny, don't be afraid to ask the simple question: "How would you feel if someone said that to your mother/sister/wife/daughter? (*Note: I'm well aware that we are worthy as individuals, but we're breaking down massive, time-old walls here. You gotta start small, and teaching empathy requires something they can immediately identify with.) I'm your equal, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

It's their shame, not yours. Rise up.