#YesAllWomen

I felt compelled to speak out in support of the hashtag that took over twitter in the past 24 hours. Sparked by the death of  innocents in and around the University of California. Now while I'm not going to get into the actual case, the backlash of the events has seen millions of women taking to social media to speak out against misogyny and the corrupted ideology that our society promotes. As a girl/woman I have been taught to be careful when walking at night, to not leave my drink unattended at parties in fear that someone would spike my drink, to just 'accept' men's catcalls and vulgar comments as 'boys will be boys' but why should girls be taught this and not men. Why not teach them to not attack vulnerable women at night, to not put drugs in women's drinks, to not make women feel like a piece of meat by making demeaning comments. Now this tag or this post is not to say that all men are awful creatures that treat women like their property, there are men who are also treated this way. However the reality is that a most men have made some sort of demeaning comment or groped a women or done something that made a woman feel uncomfortable (again not all of male population). Our society makes women feel that they are the reason for their rape, that we should expect comments off men if we dress in a 'provocative way'. We all are somewhat a product of our society and unfortunately until the messages that society are outputting changes then we cannot expect the people who live in the society to change. I shouldn't have to think where I could possibly hide if someone was following me or feel self conscious when a man hangs his head out the car to look at my body when I have jeans and a vest top on.
                                             #YesAllWomen is true, sad and powerful.
 A final note; Neil Gaiman produces my favourite tweet in the #YesAllWomen tag:

"The #yesallwomen hashtag is filled with hard, true, sad and angry things. I can empathise & try to understand & know I never entirely will."