I unconfidently told a guy, I look like a man.

And his response was: at least your eyes are pretty.

 

At least? 

How can my eyes possibly be pretty with the horrors I’ve seen? 

 

As young girls, we were taught to be the most prettiest, skinniest, and the giddiest.

Laughing at every joke just to seem likable.

Otherwise we are nothing. We work on becoming the prey.

 

I hate that when our backs are turned it leaves us vulnerable, free to look at from behind. Our asses a piece of meat, but we should be giving them a piece of our mind.

 

In school, teachers instruct us to not have our clothes too short and bare shoulders are not allowed. Teachers would stare at us as they measure at our fingertips, making sure our shorts are longer, despite the length of our arms. 

 

Yet the boy sitting next to me is staring regardless of the miles of skin I have covered, while he wears a muscle tee and a baseball cap.

 

I’d wake up for school, trying on five outfits to make sure my skin wasn’t exposed. My opinion didn’t matter. My choices were made to accommodate boys whose mouths would water like a hose rather than listening to the answer is 12

 

Im twelve. I’m standing, patiently and anxiously, on side of the road as I wait for a bus.

I haven’t even formed breasts and truck drivers who are old men honk at my body every other day.

I was only a child.

What would happen if my brother wasn’t there?

 

College is all the same. "Saturdays are for the boys."

I witness touching, hazing, and rape.

What is under our clothes is more valuable than our feelings.

I don’t know a girl who hasn’t had some form of unwanted sexual attention. 

 

Frat guys collect our bodies as tokens and universities don’t follow through with their promises. We play a game with a cheater. Universities that would rather punish academic cheaters than a rapist.

 

We are forced to stay silent.

What if IT lost his scholarship?

What if IT went to jail?

What if IT couldn't graduate?

What if it was my fault? 

 

Rape culture paints their mark on women’s bodies with nothing being done. We punish the victim until IT happens. 

When will the tiny voices of women be heard?

Maybe there is more ITs than women.