I wrote these words in honour of International Women’s Day. It’s a passionate piece for which I make no apologies, because everything I’ve written here has been drawn from my experiences since girlhood.
This is why we need International Women’s Day, and why it’s essential to think of girls and women and the messages we’re given on more than one day per year.
This list might appear rather lengthy but, believe me, it’s far from exhaustive.
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When men make me feel I’m not as good as them, I am enraged.
As a child, when I saw the posters of naked women adorning the walls of the workshop of my father’s plumbing business, I was enraged.
At the age of ten or eleven, when I helped clean the vans and trucks used by the plumbers and I had to pick up the magazines full of pictures of bare-breasted women or women with their legs splayed wide that were strewn about inside and stack them neatly before replacing them, I was enraged.
At fourteen, when I walked down the street and a man approaching in the opposite direction groped my crotch, I was enraged. When it kept happening throughout the rest of my teens, not just in the street but on public transport or at school, I was enraged. When I wouldn’t dance with a boy at a disco and was told I must be a ‘dyke’, I was enraged. Not for being called a ‘dyke’ but because he was so arrogant to assume it couldn’t possibly be him. At nineteen, when a man approached me at a bus stop with his penis in his hand and asked me if I wanted twelve inches, I was enraged.
As a young woman, every time I disagreed with a man and was told I didn’t know what I was talking about, I was enraged. Every time a man explained something to me because he thought he knew more than me, I was enraged. Every time a man ignored me and what I had to say, I was enraged. Every time a man treated me like I was less capable or less intelligent than him, I was enraged.
As a medical student, when a male patient caught my arm as I was about to leave and asked me out, I was enraged. As a doctor, when a male patient kept asking about my marriage and told me that if I ever left my husband, he’d be interested, I was enraged. As a doctor, every time a male patient masturbated while I examined him, I was enraged. All three times with three different patients.
When, as a doctor with a young family I was offered a part-time job without pay, I was enraged. As a doctor who was a mother and was expected to settle for less pay, less opportunity, less career, I was enraged.
Every time I hear men say that society is best served by a woman staying at home and looking after the family, I am enraged. Every time I hear that ‘it’s biology’, I’m enraged. Every time a man does not recognise that I have a right to use my brain, I am enraged. Every time I’m told how lucky I am because my husband hangs out the washing or cooks a meal, I am enraged. Every time I’ve been expected to manage a household, carry all the emotional needs of the family, and try to fit my own career around this, I’m enraged. Every time I’m told that wanting more from my life than motherhood alone is ‘selfish’, I’m enraged. Every time I see a man able to have a career so easily, I’m enraged.
Every time I hear a man speak derogatorily about a woman’s appearance, I am enraged. When the headmaster of my sons’ school told me I looked good for having four children, I was enraged. Every time I hear a man talk of a woman who has ‘kept her figure’ after having children, I am enraged.
Every time a man treats me as if I’m stupid, I’m enraged. Every time a man does not recognise that I’m as intelligent, possibly even more so, than him, I’m enraged. Every time a man does not recognise that I am every bit as good, as worthy and as equal as him, I’m enraged.
Every time I’m told, ‘Oh, that’s just the way it is’, I am enraged. Every time I’m told, ‘You just have to accept it’, I am enraged. Every time I’m expected to accept the unacceptable, I’m enraged.
While men continue to cut women down, I will be enraged. While men continue to expect women to settle for less, I will be enraged. While men continue to treat women as ‘lesser’ and not as equals in workplaces and governments, I will be enraged. While nearly all positions of power in this country and around the world are held by men, I will be enraged.
And while men continue to believe that this is not a problem, I will be enraged.
It goes without saying that while men continue to maim and kill women, I will be enraged.
And every time I am mocked or criticised for my rage, I will be enraged.
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Coming Up
Next week I have another formidable female writer joining me in the attic. She’ll be talking about her latest book and why she wrote it, as well as her writing process:
‘Thomas Mann once wrote that ‘writers are those people who find writing difficult’. He must have meant me … Writing rarely comes easily to me, because it is always bound with enormous self-doubt. But what I find particularly daunting is first drafts. I can be seized when writing them, to the point of paralysis, by the feeling that I have nothing, or nothing worthy, to say.’
All I can say is, I understand, I do understand…and it never seems to change…
No, nothing has changed, as my daughters keep telling me. Thanks for reading. 🙂
As a teenager just starting to date, I was told that I was really intelligent for a girl. I wasn’t enraged – then. I am now.
How insulting to you and to all women! The thing is, I was enraged by all these experiences, but I didn’t say anything at the time because I didn’t want to get ‘a name for myself’ or be labelled as ‘outspoken’ or ‘unable to take a joke’. But inside, I was seething.
Thank you, Louise! We need to hear your rage and to express our own. My share: I have an acquaintance, a man about 70, who hangs out at my coffee shop and is friendly with some of my friends. I try to avoid him these days, because he has enraged me several times with his grossly patronising comments. In response to some comments of mine that disagreed with him, he said ‘Oh, you just want to have men at your knees, Christina!’ I felt like saying, no, I just want them to be my equal. But at the time, because he’d got under my skin, I told him to shut up. When I turned 79, he said, ‘You’re doing very well for your age!’ I felt like saying, ‘I can’t say the same for you.’ For me as a woman approaching my 8th decade, sexism, misogyny and patriarchal arrogance and patronage tend to be mixed with ageism. I reject both and will continue to do until I die. I just need to practise speaking out when offensive comments or behaviour happen. Though sometimes, saying nothing and walking away is the best answer. What do you do when men hit on you or patronise you?
Misogyny and ageism—what a potent and belittling combination. It’s not easy to ignore these put down, nor is it easy to get over, although most of us have and for many years. But after five decades of it, and nearly eight in your case, it mounts up. Time to draw the line. Enough is enough.
Like you, Christina, for many years, I barely said a thing when I was patronised. I shut up and let them speak if they spoke over the top of me, and I listened to what they had to say and kept my opinions to myself because I didn’t want to fall out with them. These days, I don’t care what idiots think of me, so I tell them if I disagree and I also tell them not to interrupt me when I’m talking. After that, I try to have little to do with them as possible because I’m not going to change them or their way of thinking. Strangely, I’m finding it less and less of a problem these days—I think I give off a ‘Don’t mess with me’ vibe!
You have every right to be enraged. So much still must change, and so much still goes unacknowledged. We’re told so often ‘but things are different these days’. Ha!
I’d just like to say, in honour of International Women’s Day last week – we your friends understand your rage, and we’ve got your back. Let’s lift each other up and keep helping each other make changes for the better. xx
I’ve asked my daughters if things have changed since I was young, and the answer is a clear, ‘No!’, which is shameful.
And, gosh, where would we all be without our female friends! It’s lovely to share my life with so many good women. Thank you! ❤️
I’m so flipping enraged Louise. But what really peeves me is when another woman doesn’t have her sisters’ backs because she still has the wool of patriarchy firmly over her eyes, in her ears and stuffed down her throat. We are not only fighting against men, but women too, sometimes. This is why we need to keep speaking up, because eventually the penny does drop. Mxxx
Yes ! While I agree that we must rage Louise, – my story is similar in many ways , from child rage of female splayed bodies to sick male masturbators, career prejudice as lawyer and also 4 children- I agree with this comment. Women are so busy competing with each other that they often cannot see that we’re all on the same side! I’m kind of tired of raging against men in many ways. It’s now up to women to start supporting each other but somehow I don’t think it’ll get there. Most women still compete against each other – for the best man ! I think I’m ready for my next blog …
I hear you, I hear you. Believe me, I hear you. Over the years, I’ve heard women criticise girls for what they wore, saying they were ‘asking for it’. I’ve been told by a woman that if I’d really wanted a medical career, I wouldn’t have had so many children. After the birth of my last child, I applied for a new job and when they asked me when I could start, I answered that it depended on when I could get a babysitter. It was a woman who told me that wasn’t a good answer. It was a woman who told me that if I really cared about my career, I’d accept the part-time job they were offering with no pay. I’ve had friends whose husbands have had affairs and who’ve blamed it on themselves and the fact that men ‘need sex more than women’. When my son’s school performed ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’, a musical that could only be described as a cross between The Benny Hill Show and the Carry On movies, and I voiced my concern at the portrayal of women in the show, it was women who told me, ‘It’s just satire’. I could tell so many, many more similar stories …
But this is the reason I’m telling my stories about what I’ve experienced at the hands of men. Because my story is not so different from what most women have experienced at the hands of men, including women who tolerate this behaviour and, on the face of it, support it. Deep down, though, I don’t think they like it anymore than we do, and I think they accept the unacceptable because they want to be liked, to fit in, to be accepted.
It’s only by highlighting what all of us have had to put up with or turn a blind eye to or pretend never happened or pretend didn’t upset us, and show it for what it is, in all its graphic detail, that we can show every woman she doesn’t have to tolerate it.
And I can’t wait to read that blog post! 😉
Maintain that rage, Louise. You’re not alone in it. Great post. Happy International Women’s Day.
Thank you, Elisabeth! It’s so good to be able to express our rage these days! Happy #IWD365 to you, too!
Thank you Louise, I agree completely, I’ve worked in a male dominated industry for most of my life and have had to put up with so much crap from the men I work with, often I still do. When I listen to the way the guys talk about their girlfriends wonder if they have any idea of the way they are talked about. It leads me to not have much respect for many of these men. It is slowly changing, but there are still many out there who think a woman doesn’t deserve or belong in the industry. Who still think of women as meat. I hope one day it changes.
I don’t hear the girlfriend talk these days, but certainly the wife talk, and the way men lustily discuss another woman in front of their wives.
Some things are changing, but too slowly. When I hear of the sex tapes being made without a woman’s knowledge or the viral spread of nude photos or my daughters’ stories about the way they’re treated, I’m not sure society’s changed much at all. Certainly not as much as it should.
I think the battle’s just beginning! 💥👊💥
The younger guys are the worst for the wife and other women talk .Social media has a lot to answer for. I don’t know where this continued lack of respect and sense of entitlement comes from. You’re right in some respects it is getting worse. I don’t know what the answer is.
My answer is to just keep doing what we’re doing—calling it out when we see and hear it, and continuing on with our lives, leaving the housework, having careers, doing the things we find fulfilling and living a full life. 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing these experiences, Louise. I’m enraged for you, and sadly can relate to way too many of them, as I’m sure other women who read this post will too.
I doubt there are many women in existence who’ve not experienced similar. The difference is whether you accept it. Or not. Thank you for reading. ❤️
Our voices are starting to be heard. I admire yours so much. xx
Yes, and isn’t it nice that we can finally talk about all of this. Thanks for reading! 😍
I hear and feel the rage. I have felt it since childhood and my 13yo still has to feel it. And the PM thinks feminism is okay as long as it is not at the expense of ‘others’.
I know what you mean about feeling it since childhood and basically being taught to accept it. I’m sure your thirteen year old has been taught how to handle it better than we were.
The Australian government at the moment is like Orwell and Atwood’s dystopian fiction. It’s disgraceful.
Thank you Louise, well said. I can’t tell you how much I identify with, as I have lived longer. I am in my sixth decade and with it has come a freedom to ‘call it out’ in its many and varied forms. Often from other women, which makes me even more angry/sad.
Well done! I’m in my sixth decade, too, and, like you, I feel empowered to call it out these days. All those times we’ve had to shake it off, pretend it didn’t affect us, act like nothing happened and stay silent. It takes a huge mental and emotional toll, and it’s not fair that we women have to carry others’ shame. Enough is enough. Go us!