Fair Game
When the world feels messy, I focus on what I can control. I lift heavy things, stretch my muscles, and sign up for dance classes. Living in my body takes me out of my head.
At least until a catcaller, creepy DM, or insecurity ruins the moment.
Over the weekend I finished reading My Body, a deeply relatable collection of personal essays by Emily Ratajkowski. She chronicles the contradictions that exist in women’s bodies. Our looks are both a source of power and liability.
Emily’s physical features were tools for success in her modelling career. That said, she was working to win a man’s game.
Women’s bodies are equally celebrated and controlled. We wrap them in legislation, expectations, and shame almost as much as we force them into lacy lingerie. Body shapes go in and out of style like pant hems.
Growing up as a woman is a series of stacking anxieties. “Does this look okay” slowly becomes “do I deserve love?” “Will he like me” devolves into “will he hurt me?”
To cope, some of us dissociate from our bodies to create distance. Hiding your sexuality minimizes the risk of unwanted attention. Others lean in. If people are going to look anyway, why not control how they react?
In either case, we’re responding to an environment where we are preyed on. Some animals evolved camouflage. Others took on bright colours and poison.
All are still eaten by predators.
When Sephora has a sale
Open Season
It’s hard to separate my relationship with my body from the ways men have made me feel about it. When I was a pre-teen, boys largely ignored me. When I left school in my uniform, however, I felt old men watching me loiter at the mall. Dance costumes that were cute on everyone else caused eyebrow raises from parents.
I felt powerless in how my sexuality was perceived.
By the time I was 16, boys would wait at my locker to share rumours they’d heard about me. Getting a boyfriend was only further cause for speculation into my sex life, which, allegedly, was out of control. A few party smooches left me labelled as a slut. A boy who once turned me down for a date told the entire football team he’d seen me naked.
If he had, I wasn’t aware of it.
When I entered university, I was still a teenager. My mom dropped me off at my first frat party fifteen minutes early, and I waved goodbye from the front door. That naivety sparked names like “Jailbait Jamie” to circulate group chats. One fraternity had a reward for any brother that could confirm the size of my boobs.
Eventually, I took those monikers and let them be part of my identity. Why fight what the world is saying you’re supposed to be? I loved shocking men with revelations that I was too young for them to be looking at. I oscillated between pushup bras and bralettes to maintain an air of mystery. At 17, I dated multiple 24-year-olds.
I used a fake ID to go out with a divorcé.
As an adult, I feel strange about that part of my dating history. So much of my time was spent reacting to how men viewed me. I desperately wanted to live up to the expectations I was given.
Why didn’t any of them care that I was underage? Did they see my willingness as an invitation for objectification, and how many would have gone after younger women if they could?
Famous minors have always been hotspots of perverse behaviour. Interviewers were asking Britney Spears about her virginity on national television as a teenager. Paris Hilton was known as NYC’s hottest ‘party girl’ by age 16. Matilda star Mara Wilson was photoshopped into child pornography.
One of the creepiest traditions is the 18th birthday countdown. Men, apparently, love to celebrate when sex with their favourite child star would no longer be statutory rape. The Olsen twins had at least seven countdown websites dedicated to them, despite the fact that we watched them grow up from literal infancy.
Emma Watson revealed that at her 18th birthday party photographers laid down on the street to take photos up her skirt. The next morning, they were published in the tabloids, knowing full well that 24 hours earlier the content would have been illegal.
Millie Bobby Brown turned 18 last week, and the countdowns were just as disgusting as they’ve always been. A Reddit thread dedicated to posting sexual photos of her had more than 6,000 members ahead of her birthday. Her Instagram comment section plummeted immediately into the obscene when the clock struck midnight.
Full-grown men couldn’t contain themselves around the fresh meat offering laid out before them. In hunting, this is called buck fever.
What these men don’t realize – or more likely what they choose to ignore – is that turning 18 doesn't come with any magic changes to that woman’s psyche. Just because you’re abiding by the law, doesn’t mean vocalizing your fantasies about a teenager isn’t harmful.
There’s nuance in understanding your relationship with your body and sex. That process isn’t helped by having to dodge creepy men. Instead, it creates enormous pressure for young women to understand sexuality well before they’re ready.
We’re forced into a survival mode of needing to both recognize and react to our impact on men while we’re still vulnerable. In that model, there’s little room to discover anything for yourself.
Fawns learn to run right after they are born.
Mad as hell
I Just Took a DNA Test
Until recently, this kind of behaviour was commonplace, if not encouraged. When Lindsay Lohan turned 18 she appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone with the headline "Hot, Ready and Legal!" The Olsen twin countdowns were aired on radio stations.
Sometimes I forget that the #MeToo movement only gained steamed five years ago. There’s a lot that still needs to bubble to the surface. For example, only in the last few weeks have allegations come out about Hugh Hefner covering up sexual assaults, soliciting minors, and engaging in bestiality.
Now that we’ve encouraged survivors to speak out, we still don’t have a great system in place to protect them. Victim blaming is still rampant, soft sentences are the norm, and the trauma of trial deters many from coming forward in the first place.
If you are hunted, you generally don’t have the luxury of firing weapons back.
It also seems that you don’t have the benefit of anonymity. In San Francisco, a survivor’s DNA was taken from a rape kit and used to implicate her in a separate crime. The crime lab has been reportedly inputting samples from victims into a database for at least the last six years.
To be extremely clear, the use of victim samples to solve other cases is completely unethical per CODIS rules. Coming forward as a victim in one case should not open your entire life up to scrutiny. Camille Cooper, vice president of public policy at the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, rightfully notes that many sexual assault victims are “high risk for being assaulted because they may have criminal histories… that doesn't make them fair game”
Moreover, using this DNA is abolishing trust in a system that’s already struggling to support survivors. There is currently a backlog of over 100,000 rape kits that haven’t been tested. Seemingly that would be a higher priority than logging victim samples into a database.
While the number of untested kits climbs, the number of states that allow abortions shrinks. Remember, rape doesn’t justify the termination of pregnancy – at least not in places like Texas.
Women’s bodies are vessels for both predators and unborn children, both of whom have rights more clearly defined than our own.
USNWT mood
Play to Win
Considering the amount of fixation on women’s bodies, you’d think we’d value female athleticism way more than we do. Instead, only 4% of media coverage is dedicated to women’s sports.
In 2022, however, women’s leagues are finally thriving in a way that signals hope.
Last week the United States Women’s National Soccer Team won a six-year battle around equal pay. The women’s team performs notably better than their male counterparts, yet for years they were paid less. The initial complaint turned into a 28-player lawsuit that was dismissed, appealed, and ultimately settled for $24 million.
Leveling that playing field is a huge step forward. The hope is that this victory encourages similar reform for other sports and industries, including equal prize money from FIFA for men’s and women’s teams
Not every industry has made as many strides. Sarah Everard died almost exactly one year ago today at the hands of a London police officer. Days later, women were squashed on the pavement like cigarette butts for mourning her death. They were vilified for breaking a curfew imposed by the very group harbouring Sarah’s murderer. Since then, we’ve exposed how vile the Metropolitan Police system is.
We have not, however, made streets any safer. In fact, violence against women has intensified throughout the pandemic.
It feels like we’re perpetually living in a hunting ground where prying eyes follow our every move. I come back to a quote from Animal by Lisa Taddeo
“The young man at the cash register noticed me and then didn’t take his eyes off of me… He was picking a pimple on his chin and staring at me. There are a hundred such small rapes a day”
Growing up in the 2000s, young women were told we’d be respected if we dressed the right way and steered clear of the wrong people. I was convinced I was entering a world where equal pay for equal work wasn’t something we’d need to keep fighting for. I thought rape was as controllable as your diet. Just keep your calories in less than your calories out and keep your skirt longer than someone who’s “asking for it.”
Today we know most sexual assaults are committed by the people you’re closest to. We’ve come to recognize coercion as part of the story. Sexual harassment lurks in the grey area. Most assaults on your safety aren’t something a rape whistle can save you from.
The control we thought we had was an illusion.
My Bag Limit
(^ that’s a hunting joke btw)
No matter how much progress we make as women – be it better handling of victim DNA, support for survivors, abortion rights, or equal pay legislation - there’s a fear that we will be reduced to our bodies.
The very body that’s keeping me from stressing about everything else wrong in the world.
When I lay in savasana, I think to myself how lucky I am to be able to move. I thank my body for the freedom it gives me, despite the shackles I feel in public. I’ve learnt to indulge in the privacy of my home, in the back corner of the gym, and in classes geared to other women.
I try not to think of these actions as hiding from poachers, but instead as part of a strategic game. I no longer try to dissociate or lean into expectation. I’m trying to opt out entirely.
If the rules aren’t fair, then I’ll play something else.
