Sexual Harassment Reflection Paper

1058 Words3 Pages

I kept hearing the number 6. I was sitting in the cafeteria of my university and this guy kept saying something about the number 6. My assumption was he was complaining about the price of the burger which was 6 dollars extra, but he wasn’t. He was talking about a group of girls who put their stuff down at a table near him and then walked away to get food. As I heard him more clearly he almost shouted “She’s a 6, she’s a 6,she’s a f-king 6”. He then continued to rate the girls when they sat down. He determined most of the girls at that table were a 6, one he thought was just a 3. I want to tell you this is the first time in my 20 years of life I’ve experienced a man rating a woman as she enters a room, but it’s not. Once when I was in the 8th …show more content…

I told my best friend about the countless times I had been catcalled last semester and he thought it was a “compliment”. What he couldn’t comprehend was I was not asking to be sexualized by these guys, I wanted to print out a paper for class. The shouts coming from the car made me fear for my safety. It’s a bit horrifying to realize the sexual harassment I observed and experienced as a middle school/high school student does not end after puberty is over, it intensifies. The older I get the more I want to own who I am, what I believe in and what is important to me. Despite my own opinion certain men think they have ownership over my body and the bodies of all …show more content…

Even when people don’t say it there is always an underlying assumption.I’m supposed to be quiet, do as I’m told, play an antiquated role and not use resources allocated for those with more privileged than myself. I can recognize my privilege though, I am cisgender,hetrosexual, have a somewhat decent financial stability, safe opportunity for education.

Even Blue Ivy isn’t immune to objectification. She has more access to money, power, and education than most of us could imagine. Ever since she was born people have picked her appearance a part as if she wasn’t a baby or a toddler or a little girl or a human. People treat her as if she is a collaboration album between Beyonce and Jay Z, to be rated and reviewed at our pleasure. All the privilege she has does not diminish the fact that she is a black girl. And as a black girl she gets little respect from the world around her.

The college experience is starting to get more complicated. My generation is given a platform on social media. The frustration we feel and our experiences can be shared within mere moments. This shows sexism, racism,homophobia,transphobia,classism happening everyday around the world. These are not isolated incidents as the media would sometimes like to portray them. These are patterns that plagued our world since the dawn of

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