This is not what you might think. My ex did me very wrong and the last thing I wanted to do was to be in contact with him, but since we broke up over two years ago I had this pressure on the back of my neck that wouldn’t let me let go of that relationship. Not because I was still in love with him, but because I stood up from that one Starbucks table and left without saying a word the moment he told me he thought we should break up. I got into another relationship not long after that that which made me forget about it for a bit, but once I went back to being single I kept going back again and again to that day.
After the Thelma-Dartes case blew up in Argentina, a wave of girls and women invaded social media exposing men that had harassed, stalked, assaulted, abused or raped them. The courage that Thelma Fardin had by telling her story inspired thousands of young women all around the country to come out and tell their stories as well. The hashtag #MiraComoNosPonemos (look at how we get) became viral and more exposed cases of sexism/machismo* appeared every day. These were cases that a judge probably wouldn’t do much with, so we decided to take things with our own hands. By hearing other girl’s stories, we took notice of a lot of sexist attitudes that some men had had over us that we wouldn’t have realized were sexist until someone else pointed them out as something that had happened to them.
I’m all for reporting and exposing men who are obviously and purposely sexist towards anyone. But I realized that for myself that wasn’t going to work, which is why I decided to text my ex.
I sent him a 10-item list of all the sexist or simply asshole things he had done to me; things such as psychological manipulation, cheating while I was away, not understanding the word “no”, dumping me a week after my first time having sex and other reasons on how he contributed to this sexist patriarchy and make me feel bad about myself.
When he broke up the relationship all I did after leaving that coffee shop, was send him a message letting him know that he was an asshole and he didn’t deserve me, which he responded defending himself with excuses such as “a gave you a free pass (to be unfaithful) for your trip and you didn’t take it” or “you wanted it”. So, after almost three years from that, my expectations were pretty low on what his response was going to be.
To my surprise, first of all, he answered and secondly, not only did he answer but he also apologized and asked me if I could tell him in what ways he could improve as a man and be more helpful to our feminist fight. But, the thing that caught my attention the most is that he mentioned that he had never thought of his actions in that way, that he wasn’t aware of how much they had affected me. Ignorance, in my opinion, is not an excuse for bad behaviors, but at the same time in the way that I didn’t notice (at first) that a lot of the sexist attitudes that he had over me were actually sexism, how could he? Sexism is engrained so deep into our culture that many of us don’t notice it anymore when it happens, both men and women.
I kept thinking…out of all the men that were and are being exposed on social media, how many are not aware that they are being sexist and would like to change? Well, probably not a lot if I’m being honest. I just happened to run into one of them. But for those exceptions, I kept asking myself, what would be the best way to deal with their sexism? Expose them? Talk to them privately? Sue them? Revenge them? Not do anything? And what I’ve come to find by talking to my girl-friends is that each person has a different way to deal with the pain that someone has caused on them, and there is no right or wrong answer.
If someone hurt you, you should do whatever is best for you. For me, getting it off my chest and talking to that person and hopefully, having taken him out of his ignorance, made me feel better, like I could relax my shoulders by knowing that at least he knew what was the right and wrong way to treat a future partner. For others, trying to forget about it is what works for them, or exposing that person to make sure that women out there beware of him. For some, reporting. Physical assault should always be reported, and psychological abuse as well although it might be trickier since we still live in a sexist world with biased judges. However, if you think that that process eventually will heal you at least a bit, go for it. We are all aware of how hard it is for a man to actually be found guilty in sexism and power abuse, but that shouldn’t discourage us. The more we expose the people who purposely hurt others, the faster people are going to realize we need a change, at least I hope so. And always remember, that is not about them, is about you.
We all want a better world with less sexism, but if someone hurts you, do what’s best for you. If that means involving them into a feminist discussion with the hope of a changed and better men, reporting them, forgetting about it and moving on with your life, or anything you feel like doing.
*TERMS TO UNDERSTAND*
Machismo: A term most often used in latinx communities to talk about an exaggerated demonstration of masculinity, usually with sexist connotations