Playing With Gender Roles

This past week, imagineherstory wrote a post about the new JMU sexual harassment and assault policy, and reading through it brought up a mix of emotions about the topic of sexual assault itself.

My mom has always told me that I compartmentalize; I like to take the not-so-good parts of life, shove them in a little box, put them in the very back of my mind, and never ever ever open them. Or even remember that they’re there. That’s just how I deal with life apparently. Unfortunately, those boxes are there. And although they might not be open, they are still very active, if only in my subconscious.

Although, I never realized just how active they were until my Honors Imaginative Process class my junior year of high school. The assignment was to anonymously write about a trauma we’ve experienced in life. My first thought was, “I’ve never experienced any trauma. My life has been great, perfect almost”. But then, it all came flooding back.

If I don’t remember it, it didn’t happen right?  So it doesn’t count.  That’s what 5 year old compartmentalizing me told myself as I shoved it in a box and strategically hid it in the furthest, darkest, corner of my mind.

But at only 5 years old, I was subconsciously taught that I was an object.

I had playtime with my neighbors, just like countless other children, except in this case, I was the toy.  They didn’t want to play with me unless they got to play with me.  Do you know what that does to a child’s psyche? I didn’t either. Not until well over a decade later.

But I was never a victim; I never identified as one.  To me, the word victim sounded weak, like I wasn’t strong enough to stop the horrible deed that was done to me.  I wasn’t weak – I was a child. No one told me that that wasn’t how you actually played. No one told me it was wrong.  (And even if they had, I doubt I would have been able to comprehend.)  I was naive. I was innocent. But I was not weak.

I was a victim however, of culture.  In this case, I was weak.  I had been taught to be weak.  Weak was good.  I had succumbed to the gender stereotypes that countless mediums had instilled in me.

It’s bad enough that society breeds a culture of sexual objectification, but pair that with a girl who’s first sexual experience in life was being an object, and you’ve practically got no hope.

When it came to sexuality, I wasn’t a person. I was a thing. I provided pleasure. I was a means to an end. And even worse, I was okay with that.  I actually desired to be that.  After all, that’s how it had always been; that’s how it was supposed to be.  Somehow I believed that if the person liked me as the object they were playing with, then that meant that they liked me.  And that they wouldn’t be interested in “playing with me” anymore if they didn’t get to play with me.  But just because you like to play with your legos, doesn’t mean you want to talk to your legos, date your legos, marry your legos.  You just play with them until you either outgrow them or until something better comes along. Hello GameBoy.

Countless therapists and psychologists would argue that this view of myself was a result of this single incident from when I was 5.  But I would argue that it was simply the foundation. It was the sail, but culture was the wind that kept it going.  Everything I did, everywhere I turned, just reinforced this subconscious idea that that’s all I was.  In a way, I was culture’s perfect victim, already predispositioned to have this patriarchal view of society.  That I was meant to please men in any way possible.  That I wasn’t supposed to say no.  That I was supposed to be weak.

There is a substantial link between sexual assault and societal gender roles.  JOS from Feministing wrote, “We absolutely need to be talking about violence and masculinity. We should continue taking to the streets to shout that rape and sexual violence are gendered crimes that are embedded in and perpetuate patriarchy.”  A commenter then agreed that, “It includes benefits for both boys and girls – girls won’t be taught to be submissive and boys won’t be taught to be dominating and violent”.

I was forced to be submissive. And then I was taught to be submissive.  And it just makes me wonder how my life, my thoughts, and my future actions would have been different if I had never been taught.  If culture had taught me instead to be strong, to make myself happy, to be beautiful in my own way.

And It also makes me worry. I worry about the future generations who are receiving the same messages and validations of objectification that I did.  And it scares me.  It scares me because I don’t know when, or even if, these messages will ever stop.

Follow up later this week as I further explore this topic of sexual assault and societal gender roles, and also for how I’m finally beginning to change my life for the better.  In the mean time, let me know what you think it would take to break this cycle – to help future generations never feel, at any point, like it’s ok or right, to be an object, or even worse, to desire to be one.

(Also, if you missed the link earlier, you can click here to read the poem I wrote in high school about my experience)