A FIGHT TO BE HEARD
The most tedious aspect of the past few weeks has been having to listen/ watch/read the endless commentators/pub bores going on and on about how shocking it is that reports of ‘mild sexual assaults’ have been ‘conflated’ with ‘real sex assaults’ thereby demeaning the real victims in the eyes of the public blah, blah.
Absolute. Garbage.
Of course people in the real world can tell the difference between rape and a lewd comment. And of course we don’t feel the same level of sympathy for a woman who is raped as for a woman who has her knee rubbed.
And, of course, Ann Leslie, Anne Robinson and all you old women blinded by bile, no woman who’s had her backside groped is expecting the same treatment as someone who’s been raped.
They’re obviously not the same experience. But one thing is exactly the same – the right of a woman to talk about her personal experience.
This whole ‘conflation’ argument is just one more tactic intended to silence women. It’s another attempt to shut us up about the office letch, to make us believe we’re ‘being hysterical’, ‘attention seeking’, ‘making a fuss about nothing,’ or ‘failing to see the funny side’.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd spoke about this week as a “watershed moment”.
Maybe so. But we must not take change for granted. The attempts to silence women will go on long after the groping has gone.