It's 6:20pm. You just finished with your final class for the day and it's time to go home. Your lodge is a stone throw from school. You rented a single room outside the school because you do not fancy the hostel. You like your privacy. The only thing on your mind at the moment is food and rest. It's been a long day. Counting your footsteps like you always do when bored, you walk on. Everything is fine till you notice a movement behind you. Someone is following. You glance back, his face is hidden under a hoodie. He has both hands in his pockets. Alarmed, you quicken your pace. Your lodge is close. One last turn and you're there. Another glance backwards and you notice he's closing in on you. Your heart is beating wildly now. Just before you make the last turn, he catches up with you.
"Hello, Cynthia," he says.
You realise it's Joseph. He lives across the street.
"Busy day today?" he's smiling.
You swallow hard and nod. You try to return the smile but your lips won't cooperate.
"See you around," he walks on.
You watch him go and exhale. Just then, you realise you've been holding your breath.
That above happens all the time. It's so frequent that it's becoming frighteningly normal. And that brings me to what I actually want to talk about. The #MeToo campaign. I've noticed that most of the time when the issue of sexual abuse and rape of the female gender is being discussed, you find people trying to shut it down, if I may say that, with the #MenToo tag. This is about women and what they go through everyday. That story above is very real and scary.
Let us be honest
As much as the "men get sexually abused too" narrative is valid, as much the "abuse has no gender" statement is correct, if you sit down and really give it a thought, maybe you would understand why the female gender, and females especially, are pretty much exclusive about their campaign against rape. Maybe you would understand why they get irritated when they are chanting #MeToo and you jump to quip #MenToo.
As a man, have you ever been so scared of walking down the street at night? When you notice a strange movement behind you, what's your first instinct? To protect your phones and money if you have any on you? Does your heart leap with the thought that you might get jumped on?
Have you ever been afraid of somebody pushing you down and tearing at your boxers? Have you ever been afraid of somebody, after robbing you of your belongings, flipping you over and whipping out his dick, putting his gun to your head before shoving it in your mouth?
The last time I was at a hang out was on February. There were about twenty-five of us. Few ladies, more guys. I couldn't drink. I'm not a drinker on a good day but I couldn't touch anything. These are people I know and talk to everyday but I was too scared to touch anything. I wanted to go home safe and early. This is the kind of fear women live with. The fear sitting alone in a room with three guys. The fear of hanging out late at night. The fear of walking lonely paths alone.
Nope. Men don't know such kind of fear. We don't know such kinds of terror. Yes, men get sexually harassed and I won't say "it is nothing compared to what women go through " because abuse is abuse. But hey, as much as abuse is abuse, it is women that bear most of the brunt of abuse. It is the female gender that's most likely to be sexually assaulted. You can argue that males get abused too but you cannot argue against the fact that sexual abuse is predominantly targeted at females.
Here is what I saw on Twitter few weeks ago.
I can't remember how many times I've had to stop myself from running on a street full of people just because I noticed strange movement behind me. Or how many times I had to go home before the end of an event just so I could be safe. Or how many times I've had to 'cover up' because there're so many guys in the house. Or how many times I beat a stranger's straying fingers off the front of my blouse. Or how many times I gave some guy a respect yourself look in a public transport vehicle.
So you understand my frustration when you shove your own story of abuse in my face. You understand my paranoia when you tell me that men get raped too when I'm talking about females. It's not a war of female against male. It's a campaign with the aim of making the society a better place for the female child, especially the unborn ones. We speak about our struggles with the hope that the generation to come will not relive it. Or maybe you do not understand because you were born the 'lucky' gender.