Usually, I don’t pay attention to what others think, but sometimes I let their judgments bother me. One afternoon, I was leaving high school, walking toward my mom’s car. The parking lot was empty because I had waited for the buses to leave.
“Hey, you! Nice butt!” I heard someone shout behind me as I kept moving forward without looking back. I refused to dignify such a ridiculous statement with a response. Then I heard the voice again, louder this time, but ignored it until I reached the vehicle. Two boys glared at me as they hurried past. Those simple words stayed with me as we drove away, and I obsessed over the encounter.
This was the first time I remember being objectified. We all know people who spend their days gawking at bodies as if they are commodities, but I didn’t personally experience it until the day I left school wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Reluctant to give anybody a reason to notice me, I started assembling a wardrobe full of large hoodies in various colors to dodge further comments about my body. Determination fueled my teenage expedition to repel anyone attracted to me because of my physical appearance.
I hated when boys looked at me with selfishness in their eyes, treating girls like worthless items, and I despised how they reduced my essence to a collection of body parts instead of who I am. They treated me like a piece of meat or a slice of cake with little to offer. I was even angrier with myself for giving them that kind of power, handing over the key to my happiness, letting them reshape what I thought about myself.
Then it happened again, except this occasion the boy merely saw a picture of my face before launching his pursuit. There was lust deep in his heart similar to the envious feeling he got after watching an expensive convertible drive by. He didn’t want me, he wanted my body. Ultimately, I realized this would happen no matter what I wore, and there I was nothing I could do. If I hid in my house and never left, then I would allow these foolish guys to control my life. So what could I do?
And now God has led me to the Dominican Republic where thousands of wives, mothers, and daughters marched to protest the alarming number of femicides in 2019 because over 350 women were murdered by a partner or ex-partner in the previous four years. While they are not the only country where the overwhelming majority views females as property and discards them like trash when they are no longer desired, the rate of intimate partner violence is among the highest in Latin America. Even though it is a wonderful place filled with beautiful people, this male mentality troubles me.
Will their hearts and minds ever change? Are parents teaching their sons to see women as the human beings they are with thoughts and feelings and important internal assets to share with the world? Respectable men are real and just because you may not have come across one doesn’t mean they don’t exist. However, there are also too many counterfeits. Sometimes it seems pointless to call for a solution to the problem and it breaks my heart.
A wise Dominican once told me if I didn’t want to stay inside my home forever, the only healthy options were to ignore these people, forget about them, and let it go. It was unrealistic and impossible to stop everyone from ever looking at me again. Although a man who uses another to temporarily satisfy his never-ending sexual appetite may not deserve forgiveness, I had to forgive anyway. Not for him, but for me. And it was a daily decision I had to make because there were times when I forgot I already forgave and had to release the bitterness yet again. No one has the authority to control my emotions or the right to steal my peace. I won’t let them, especially when they aren't worth it.
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