I just want to share a few of my experiences that point to the kind of incessant programming that FA has been talking about. I'm a little older than FA and considerably older than the young guys here, so my programming was probably stronger--but Susan's has introduced me to lots of young guys living in conservative areas, and being raised by conservative families, who had it worse than I ever did.
When he was sixteen, my brother was pushed into getting a summer job because, you know, he was a boy. We lived in a small, closed community, and I guess my parents brokered it for him. I was never pushed in this way. When I was nineteen--nearly twenty, in fact--I finally got a job while I was on a break from college. It was all my idea.
I was not raised with the assumption that I would have a career. In fact, when I was about twenty (as I said, a college student still living at home), my mother made it very clear that she expected me to work until I found Mr. Right. I guess that's all that my as-yet-unearned college diploma would have been worth.
I was expected to live at home until I married. I obviously couldn't fend for myself; someone had to take care of me.
I did many things later in life than my brother did, and this seemed to be expected because, you know, I needed to be protected. When I started talking about moving out (I was twenty), my parents, and especially my mother, made it clear that I could do that only under their control--they even talked about investing in a condo for me to share with a girlfriend so that they could keep me under their thumb. I finally just disappeared one day. I knew they would do everything they could to keep me at home.
As a child, I often bested the boys and was often told that I must have cheated because girls aren't good enough to compete with boys. I was taunted and even ostracized for being better.
At eleven, I and a boy were the smartest ones in the class. I had to worry about what would happen if I looked (or was) smarter than he was because girls can't be at the top of their class without a lot of grief.
When I was about fifteen, some of my father's side of the family was over for Christmas. We all took turns opening gifts while the whole bunch watched. I got a rape whistle. For some weird reason, nobody was watching me at that moment--or maybe they all figured it out and pretended to direct their attention elsewhere--but it was one of the defining moments of my life. In that moment, I knew that I would never be safe wherever I went. Never. As far as I can tell, girls are brought up with the certain knowledge that they are never safe. They can protect themselves by taking classes or carrying pepper spray or even a gun. But they do that BECAUSE they are unsafe. They must become defensive.
I was raised to worry about dark streets, empty parking lots, and strangers hiding in the back seat of my car. In my college years, I absorbed the knowledge that no woman should leave her drink unattended at a party, accept a ride from a strange man, or take a shortcut to her car.
Once I became sexually active, I was on tenterhooks every month lest I should miss a period. I got pregnant twice, maybe three times. Once when I wasn't even penetrated, once when my boyfriend raped me without a condom, and the third time, if it was a third time, when the birth control must have failed (I think I had a spontaneous miscarriage early on, but I'm not sure). Sex for me was a risky venture, even with birth control, and I know that it was like that for a lot of cis girls. And abortion apparently has a terrible effect on many women. I had a cattle call abortion once and saw the devastation in the recovery room. Fortunately, I was untouched. I just wanted the growth removed.
I was assumed to be incompetent at nearly everything--it didn't have to be math or science or cars. My superior knowledge in my own areas of specialty were routinely challenged and discounted by men. Once, when I invited my then-boyfriend to "look it up in the dictionary," he told me that the dictionary was wrong. He certainly couldn't be wrong.
At a job interview, my would-be employer sexually harassed me.
If I dressed unattractively, I was sometimes ignored or even insulted to my face. The alternative was worse, actually. If I dressed sexily, men had entire conversations with my chest (well, that happened no matter what), and some men assumed that I would put out. When I refused, some men became frighteningly angry as if I were obligated to have sex with them. When it became clear that I had a brain, some men were actually intimidated and dropped me like a hot potato and wouldn't talk to me. Poor things. They had been raised in a culture that said that a man is no man if he is bested by a woman.
Boys are raised with their own set of rules and assumptions. These are some of the ones I was raised with--a clear message that girls are less than boys, incompetent, sexually available, and unsafe in the world. I'm not saying that my actual experiences are universal; I'm saying that, generally speaking, the messages were, at least in my day. I hope things aren't as bad nowadays, but some things might actually be worse.
