Paint it Purple
This post was originally written for the Paint it Purple blog carnival (run by the fabulous Pixel Project ), but I was too late to enter. I'm fortunate enough never to have had someone beat, hurt or rape me for being a woman; others I know have not been so lucky. From being struck in the ribs to being touched by guys who can't keep it in their pants, all the way up to rape, I haven't seen it all but I know I've seen too much for me to keep my mouth shut. What's just as bad is that these girls and women have their experiences played down; either society trivialises and outright lies about what happened to them (they say that she "wanted" to be sexually harassed or that she willingly slept with her rapist) or the women themselves try to rationalise what has happened to them, absolving the abuser of all blame or blaming themselves. I know this is anecdotal evidence, but it's all I have and it's what has made the biggest impact on me. Though I wa...