the all girl army forums: Male privilege.

Yesterday I was out with a buddy and a friend of his. On the way home his buddy put on a song that I found appalling. (It was Dance with the Devil by Immortal Technique. The lyrics are graphic and very possibly triggering so take care.)

We discussed what the song meant and why they wanted to listen to it and it's potential social value but I'm still angry. How nice it much be for them to just hit play and listen to a song without being reminded that I'm not a person, I'm a woman. As such it's not necessarily safe for me to be out alone at night. And how completely ignorant of him to play a song where the rape and murder of a woman is presented far more salaciously than was necessary in front of a woman he had met earlier that morning. I'm not an abuse survivor but he had no way of know that.

I finally did get my point across and he apologized for offending me but I don't think I changed anything. I don't think he'll think twice before doing something like that again. And that frustrates me and makes me angry. How on earth is it socially acceptable to expect women to just sit there quietly while listening to an account of senseless violence to another woman, even if it is fictitious? I think I was even supposed to like the song.

At the moment I never want to see him again. And even though I know my response was both civil and reasonable, there's a small voice telling me that I'm overreacting, that he didn't mean anything by it, that he apologized -- isn't that good enough? I'd like nothing more than to banish that little voice forever. I, and every other woman, am more than an object to raped and killed to make a point and I do not ever want to be asked to listen to something that presents me in that light again.