Balancing Fear and Anger

Over the last couple weeks as we’ve done more and more unpacking of the readings, the idea of rape as a method, a tool for social control has really stuck out for me. It is really clear that sexual assault, as we saw in the Campbell piece, is a way to make sure that people stay in the place they should inhabit – the place society has deemed for them (or the place society wants them to stay in/ go back to). It is a way to ensure that there is a constant fear of going against the norm and a reaffirmation of the dominance of (white, cis, straight) men. Rape culture then works to ensure that women, and other vulnerable* groups do not feel safe in a multitude of situations.

Sexual assault as social control also works, I think, to force us to have men be our “protectors” and for them to be our way out of stressful situations. Over the summer, I went out to a bar a couple times, and there would be times that men would approach me and assume that they would be able to buy me a drink, take me home, etc. – if I said I just wasn’t interested, I got a called a “bitch,” a “whore,” other derogatory terms, but, if I said no, and that I currently had a boyfriend (not partner, as that’s just too queer), then they would back off. I was doing some reading a while back that explicitly discussed this tactic and how it becomes an issue because it reinforces the fact that men respect other men more than the person they are talking to. While I won’t unpack all of the issues with this topic here, xoJane has an interesting (and quick!) read about it.

Rape culture and the prevalence of sexual assault and fear mongering about it that happen (I’m looking at you, Law and Order: SVU and every crime show ever) work to make us go inside of ourselves and not confront issues because there is a genuine concern for safety. It works to make it so that we feel we can’t be angry without their being a violent response, it makes it so that we aren’t allowed to be angry – only certain people’s anger is valid, and ours is not. But, as Lorde points out, anger is useful and a powerful tool at our disposal. It is a tool we should feel comfortable using, and one that we should validate when we ourselves and others use it. If I walk down the street and get told I should smile more, or that girls are only pretty when they smile, I should feel comfortable using anger as a method to stop that – instead of giving an awkward half smile/ grimace and shuffling away quickly. And perhaps, that is a personal issue for me to overcome, but I see a fear of anger in so many of the women, racialized and queer folks I know. And it is a legitimate fear for our safety. So I suppose, the question I am grappling with after these readings and discussions is how do we use anger to get away from the fear inscribed onto us by the threat of sexual assault in order to make productive changes in ourselves, and a larger community? How do we utilize anger while being conscientious of our own safety?

*I am using the term vulnerable here to refer to other groups likely to have sexual violence perpetrated against them – people of colour, queer folks, etc. – for the sake of spacing, even as a loaded term.