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The Djinn in the bottle
Oct. 7th, 2009 08:08 pmFreedom of Speech, Baby! Learn it. Love it. Curtail mine at your own risk.
When I was growing up, I was bullied. Bigger, cooler kids made me afraid to stick up for myself. They hurt me physically, they taunted me, and everytime I backed off, they gained power over me. I had teachers harrass me in high school because it was clear that I was mousey and my parents were too afraid to stand up for me. When I was in college several of my instructors let me know who had the power: the organic chem teacher at CSM litterally told me to go home and have babies. He gave me a "D" in my lab book because he expected "girls" to have better hand writing. The mechanical engineering instructor lied and screwed me over with an "F". My senior project group dumped all the work on me. When I worked at UL I was bullied, harrassed, and litterally threatened with a golf-club. The golf-club guy was protected and I was fired.
Occasionally (super-rarely) I fought back. Buses seem to be my thing because I have been in MULTIPLE fist fights on buses; maybe it's the tight quarters. Like the guy who spit a loogie on me when I was in high school. I went completely nuts with anger and had an out-of-body experience... like someone else was moving my limbs. When I snapped back in and could feel my skin again I was standing over the spitter whaling away in his face, blood spurting from his nose as he tried to protect his head from me. I'd moved 6 feet and climbed over the back of a seat to corner him and beat the shit out of him. That's the fury of a bully-victim snapping. But that was the exception, not the rule.
Always the message from my parents and colleagues was, "Be quiet and maybe it will go away."
I'm not going to be quiet. I'm not going away. I'm not going to let anyone bully me. I have my rights. If you try to curtail them, I will happily tell you to go fuck yourself. I will joyfully bring on all the fury of someone who's been kept down and who's looking for some payback. No measure is too extreme when it comes to defending myself or for standing up for what's right.
Silence is just another weapon that bullies use to gain power. I'm not going to be silent. Ever.
When I was growing up, I was bullied. Bigger, cooler kids made me afraid to stick up for myself. They hurt me physically, they taunted me, and everytime I backed off, they gained power over me. I had teachers harrass me in high school because it was clear that I was mousey and my parents were too afraid to stand up for me. When I was in college several of my instructors let me know who had the power: the organic chem teacher at CSM litterally told me to go home and have babies. He gave me a "D" in my lab book because he expected "girls" to have better hand writing. The mechanical engineering instructor lied and screwed me over with an "F". My senior project group dumped all the work on me. When I worked at UL I was bullied, harrassed, and litterally threatened with a golf-club. The golf-club guy was protected and I was fired.
Occasionally (super-rarely) I fought back. Buses seem to be my thing because I have been in MULTIPLE fist fights on buses; maybe it's the tight quarters. Like the guy who spit a loogie on me when I was in high school. I went completely nuts with anger and had an out-of-body experience... like someone else was moving my limbs. When I snapped back in and could feel my skin again I was standing over the spitter whaling away in his face, blood spurting from his nose as he tried to protect his head from me. I'd moved 6 feet and climbed over the back of a seat to corner him and beat the shit out of him. That's the fury of a bully-victim snapping. But that was the exception, not the rule.
Always the message from my parents and colleagues was, "Be quiet and maybe it will go away."
I'm not going to be quiet. I'm not going away. I'm not going to let anyone bully me. I have my rights. If you try to curtail them, I will happily tell you to go fuck yourself. I will joyfully bring on all the fury of someone who's been kept down and who's looking for some payback. No measure is too extreme when it comes to defending myself or for standing up for what's right.
Silence is just another weapon that bullies use to gain power. I'm not going to be silent. Ever.
