From An Angry Feminist: Make Your Own Damn Sandwich By Olivia Doane
Growing up in the south, there were just some things I never questioned. I just considered them to be fairly normal. I never asked about them because I didn’t feel the need to. I was often shown and told that the women were the caretakers of the home; they were automatically deemed as the cooks, the caregivers, and the housekeepers. It seemed like absolutely everything they did was for the purposes of bettering their own families.
But then again, I also thought that all of these options were just simple choices… I didn’t realize it was an automatic expectation. Now, I know better.
The first time I was told to get back in the kitchen was my junior year. Reflecting back, I remember how it felt worse than a slap to the face.
“That’s right, get in the kitchen where you belong. Go and make some sandwiches.”
Even now, I feel a sense of anger and a teeny stab of hurt bubbling inside me. I thought this kind of sexism only happened in foreign countries. After all, in America women legally gained all the same rights as men over the course of the last one hundred years. But all of that is considered fairly recent. Beginning with the Biblical story of Eve committing the first sin in the Garden of Eden, women have been seen as inferior to their male counterparts for thousands of years. Centuries upon centuries of sexism are not going to vanish overnight.
It’s not just the cooking aspect of sexism that poses a problem. Even in the workforce, women are known to be paid considerably lower rates than their male coworkers. Women are expected to do the grocery shopping, leave any job they have and take care of the children, and make the home perfect for the husband when he comes home from work. Am I saying that there’s anything necessarily wrong with these tasks? Absolutely not! If a woman chooses to do these tasks all on her own free will, then nothing should be able to stop her. The problem comes with the automatic expectation; if she doesn't want to, then for Christ’s sake, she shouldn't have to!
Then, there’s the concept of victim blaming.
I have never been able to wrap my head around this idea, and I know I never will. I would never want to. First of all, how dare someone say that a woman, or anyone for that matter, deserves to be raped? How dare they?! It doesn’t matter what a woman is wearing, because she is never, ever, under any circumstances, “asking for it.”
“But she’s drunk!” That still doesn't excuse rape.
“But she’s dressed like a slut!” That still doesn't excuse rape.
“But--” No! Just stop. Nothing excuses rape; how hard of a concept is that to grasp? “No” means no, it doesn't mean “well, I guess you can just ignore my personal choices and have your way with me.”
One of the worst examples of victim blaming is the Steubenville High rape case. A sixteen year old Ohio teenager, impaired and unconscious from alcohol, was gang raped by two football players while their friends watched, took pictures, and recorded the acts. Because the events and specific details of the rape are so unbelievably disgusting, I won’t put them here. News of the rape spread because of social media, where pictures and videos of the nude girl were posted via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. One of the girl’s rapists texted a friend and described the girl as being “deader than Caylee Anthony,” and retweeted a comment made by one of the witnesses that said, “Song of the night is definitely ‘Rape Me’ by Nirvana.”
And yet when this so called “rape crew” was convicted, the public turned against the victim for making the football team look bad and “ruin[ed] the lives of these fine young men.” When the verdict was given on March 17th, a CNN news anchor was quoted as saying that she found the trial “Incredibly difficult, even for an outsider like me, to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their lives fell apart...when that sentence came down, [Ma'lik] collapsed in the arms of his attorney...He said to him, 'My life is over. No one is going to want me now.’”
Acts like these make me sick. Because the victim was both drunk and unconscious, these boys decided to violate, assault, and rape her, altering her life forever. Yet, she is the one being ostracized and ridiculed. For their crimes, the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to a juvenile detention center. That’s right, they weren’t even tried as adults. Please tell me, where is the justice in that?
It probably seems like I’m asking for a lot right now. All I’m really asking for equality. I’m asking for justice. I’m asking for something to happen to where women can finally be out in public alone, and not be frightened someone might harass or attack them. I’m asking for control of my own fate without being burdened with some stupid expectation that I will have to fight against for the rest of my life.
I didn’t exactly know how to react when I was told to “get back in the kitchen where I belonged.” I just didn't quite understand why a sandwich was such a big deal. It's not the sandwich at all. Now, I realize that it’s the principle of the thing.
“That’s right, get in the kitchen where you belong. Go and make some sandwiches.”
Given a chance to do it over, I like to think I wouldn't have just ignored the comment. I like to think wouldn't have brushed it off like it was nothing.
Truth be told, I like to think that I would have walked right over to the guy’s desk, stood in front of him, and said: