Olivia Blog Post for week of 5/11

Olivia Blog Post for week of 5/11

So today I want to talk about something that has happened to me and another friend who is a martial artist (Not at RMF, her father teaches her.)  Actually, I take that back.  I really don’t want to talk about it at all, because it makes me mad and is embarrassing, but think that I should.

What happened to me is that I got some really inappropriate texts from a phone number I didn’t know, although I figured out who it was.  (Like, suspended from school level of inappropriate if the school ever found out.)

What happened to my friend is that she was downtown with friends and a guy made inappropriate gestures to her.  (same level of inappropriateness.)

So that is basically gender-based discrimination, and it bothered us both as martial artists because here we have been training for years and years to be independent and take care of ourselves, and something like this happens and it becomes blindingly clear that some things you can’t defend yourself against, and that just makes me mad.  I couldn’t just march up to the kid who texted me and punch him the next time I saw him, because it happened over vacation and I didn’t see him for days.  And my friend was so startled that she just turned and walked away and she was so mad and scared because it didn’t even occur to her to use martial arts on him. She felt helpless, and it really shook her sense of security and confidence.

 And even worse, other guys that are friends, and were with the perpetrators at both events didn’t really stand up for us as friends. I thought that I’d earned some respect from some of these people and so did my friend, but these acts showed me that all was not as I thought it was.

Although really, how can we really train to defend ourselves against some dude who thinks sexting is funny? It’s not, it’s degrading and demeaning and disrespectful, and the only thing I can do is turn off my phone and walk away, and that makes me feel weak. And I hate that.

And worse, no matter how well I am trained, some guys are going to be big and strong enough that it doesn’t make a difference and I am still vulnerable. 

It takes away an illusion of safety.  And I hate that, too. I hate the thought that I could lose any street fight, it really bothers me. So anyway, this is my post. See y’all next week.