Running at night

I've never run at night. Not out of a sense of caution or because of a lack of desire. No, this was simply motivated by fear. It is a fear that I deeply resent. There is a difference between acting out of caution versus acting (or inacting) out of fear. Caution is a conscious choice. Caution is an executive decision not to do something based on whatever form of reason. Fear is simply slavery with invisible chains. Fear is a tiny closet that encloses you and keeps you from moving in any direction. I don't run at night out of fear.

Despite all the strides we have made in this country, if anything happens to a woman, she is immediately blamed. The victim is converted into a criminal. I encounter so many people that see a woman in shorts or a skirt and declare that she is "asking" for violence to descend upon her. She is immediately at fault. The flip side is that even if she wasn't wearing something other than a burka and something happened, it's still her fault. Few people I know can see how incredibly disturbing it is...this idea that one can look at another human being and the first thing that pops into their mind is not only the grossest forms of violations, but this idea that the victim deserved to have such a heinous crime occur to them. And yet, if I applied the same logic, they would peg me as the insane one, but miss the brutal hypocrisy that they leave in their wake. If I were to say, "You got a car...you are asking to be car-bombed." "You bought a house, you are asking for a robbery were your family is murdered." "You put your child in cute clothes...you are asking for a molestation." If I said any of these things, I would get a frightened look and that person would rightfully distance themselves for me. But I'm wrong for thinking there is something sick and unbalanced about a person that immediately thinks of a woman being horrifically violated because of an outfit...and the fact that it is even more grotesque that they think such a crime is justifiable. She was "asking for it" just because she was there and had the audacity to want to be free. How dare she. Doesn't she know she's just a woman?

That is the crux of this fear. If something were to happen, I would get blamed, because it's always the woman's fault. Whether she is attacked on the road or in her home, she did something to provoke it. Rape is the only crime where the victim is put on trial by the world. It's never the criminal's fault. No one ever says, "Hey we should stop these criminals." No one ever realizes that the only reason they aren't part of that statistic is because the criminal got to someone else first.

The irony is that no matter what I do, this fact would still remain. There would still be this blatant and disgusting embrace of the idea that women deserve whatever violence that happens to them. Age doesn't even declare innocence. I've heard of judges accuse children of acting too provocatively and "inviting" pedophiles. Given this dynamic, one might as well do what they want, because it's a rapist's wonderland where they get to do whatever they want to whomever they want as often as they want. The rapist will never have to be accountable for their crimes. Society lets them off the hook by placing the blame on their victims. Society gives them permission to be attackers.

I see women running at night sometimes and the deepest envy invades me. I envy their sense of safety. I envy their courage. I envy the fact that they have chosen to tell this woman-hating world to go f*** themselves; that they refused to be part of that game. I envy them, and I long for that freedom. I long to run at night.