Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Dirty Hands

By Amani:
Yesterday was just another day for me. I woke up got dressed in my favorite sweatpants and t-shirt and headed out to open my store. I was going to be working alone without employees, so I wasn`t really looking forward to it. I got there and the day was quite slow. However, at around 5, the door opens and this guy comes in. He needed help in choosing an outfit for his girlfriend, something short and sexy, something that shows lots and lots of cleavage. That’s when he got his first black point from me, but I smiled and remembered that this is business and I had to put all my feminist feelings aside for the moment. Something kept bugging me about the guy though and I kept thinking maybe it’s just the outfit that he wanted for his gf. So I shook off all those feelings and kept helping. Finally he decides on 2 dresses and tells me to please put them on me so that he can see if they are good. Naturally I refused and turned around to tidy up. And then just when I’m not paying attention he pulls me to him hardly and grabs my breasts. I yelled out so loud and my neighbor came in running and pulled him off me and they hit him.

I sat and cried not just because I felt invaded because some creep forced himself on me. I cried because I felt that what I was experiencing was a drop in the sea of the experience of rape victims. I cried for every woman that was ever harassed by a look, a touch, or a grope. But mostly I cried for women that were the victim of rape, women that did nothing wrong to deserve such a punishment. Women that were raped just because some asshole long ago made it a general case that women were the weaker sex and thus made every slime on the face of earth think he can manhandle a woman.

Now I’m not crying anymore, and I’m not ashamed of what happened to me. I want everyone to know because this can happen to anyone of us anywhere and anytime. This did not break me, it just made me stronger. At first I felt I was dirty, but now I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Dirty hands touched me, and when they did they made me a hell of a lot stronger. Before yesterday I had a brain that thought about women and said they were not treated as humans. Now my blood runs with feminism and my brain calculates how best to use my bad experiences with men to empower women. DIRTY HANDS TOUCHED ME AND MADE ME STRONGER. DIRTY HANDS TOUCHED ME AND FUELED MY BLOOD WITH THE FEMINIST REVOLUTION.

7 comments:

Nadine Moawad said...

Bravo Amani!

Pazuzu HSP said...

Yes, it makes me so angry

Unknown said...

The whole incident made me angry at first,but then when i deicded to write about it i fet better.This is a hout out for anyone out there that has been through something similar to what i went through or even worse. SPEAK UP.

DeeDee said...

You're some kind of awesome. Wait, scratch that, you're not one kind, you're all the different kinds. Hats off to you.

Dirty hands didn't make you stronger, they just pushed you to realize how strong you are. *applauds*

Maya said...

Thank you For Speaking, it's very hard to think about such experience, how about sharing it, Women should speak up indeed. The guy is a PERVERT-ASSHOLE-FUNGUS, here i got them out of my system, am glad ur ok and that it made u realize stuff :) Power

Anonymous said...

not to be confused with the Dirty Hands Collective...

solidarity!

Unknown said...

I can understand and you are very right. sometimes bad experiences make you even more stronger and after that you grow at even faster pace. I have experienced it throughout my life and specially my work for microsoft training, oracle training, pmi certification has taught me a lot about this reality of life...