Stop Calling Him The Stanford Swimmer.

It is September 2nd, 2016. It's a Friday. My library books are due today. The weather outside my house is warm and sunny.

And today, Brock Turner, a convicted rapist of an unconscious woman has waltzed out of prison a free man after spending only three months behind bars. Three months ago, the world was in an uproar after Judge Aaron Persky, "concerned about the effect that prison would have on Turner", sentenced the rapist to only six months in prison.

And now, due to good behavior, that sentence has been sliced in half. Time, it seems, is something the media has continued to associate with Turner, as if it could shed favorable light on him. Multiple newspapers printed his exceptional swim times in articles about the brutal rape he committed. His father lamented in a letter to the judge about the time his son wouldn't be able to enjoy the simple things in life, like steak, his boy's favorite food, because of, and I quote him here,"twenty minutes of action."

Yes, you read that right. Mr. Turner referred to a rape, perpetrated by his own son, as "twenty minutes of action."  If you need to go vomit, this post will be here when you return. It's okay.

This entire case was bizarrely and disgustingly focused on Brock's well-being, and his precious swim career was hanging in jeopardy. In that same letter, his father spoke about how Turner would never be the same after this trial, as if his son's victim bounced right back after waking up to her body brutalized and violated, pine needles shoved into her hair and her body, listening in a lengthy trial about how her rape was her fault because she had been drinking. Having to sit in the same room as her rapist and listen to details about his swim career, about how it wasn't a problem what he did, about how raping a person was as small of a mistake as tugging on a girl's pigtails.  This strong woman gave an incredible speech at the close of the trial, addressing how, in spite of physical evidence and eye-witnesses, it was his word against hers, and how, due to the disgusting rape culture we live in, his was widely accepted over hers. Here's a link to a transcription of that speech. Warning: it's slightly graphic, as she does not shy away from letting her audience know what horrors she suffered, post-rape included as she endured invasive testing to gather proof against her rapist. (https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra?utm_term=.jyAeO0qjR#.coW3BagqR.)

As if the two Swedish visitors who found Turner on top of his unresponsive victim, who chased him off, and were brought to tears telling police what they had witnessed, will be fine and forget this horrific memory in a little while. Because, after all, it was just twenty minutes of action, right?

And today, after he has been convicted, after all of the uproar about his sentencing, as it is trending on Facebook today that he has been released early, the headline on that site refers to Brock Turner not as "Convicted Rapist", but as "Stanford Swimmer."

I have heard him addressed in this ridiculous, asinine way on multiple platforms. Not only does it focus on an aspect of Turner that is completely irrelevant to this issue, but it is a thinly veiled attempt to draw focus on his athletic career, as if that alone with exonerate him from his actions. As I've just been extremely troubled to find out as I was looking for Brock Turner's mug shot, when you google his name, the dropdown selection of suggestions to pair up with it is deeply unsettling, to say the least. Remember that these come from what is googled about Turner most often.

Not once, not once on the ten most googled phrases about Brock Turner is the word Rapist attached to his name. But the number one suggestion? Swimming.

This is a huge issue, huge in the protection of our women, on college campuses or walking alone on the street or generally existing. Nowhere is safe for us, and the blame of what may happen to us is always ours to bear. So often are rape cases thrown out because of insufficient evidence, and here we have a case laden with irrefutable proof, and still it is "debatable" because there was alcohol in her system, because apparently, being unconscious equals giving consent somehow in the twisted brains behind Turner's ludicrous sentencing. And because, somehow, being an athlete means you are incapable of any wrongdoing. We need to stop blaming the victims of rape, and stop putting the magnifying glass on them, and put it on their attackers.

It is my fondest wish that Brock Turner will somehow pay for what he did, that his victim will somehow receive her justice. But a person cannot be unraped, and a trial cannot be redone under the United States Bill of Rights.

What I suggest we, as a society who is tired of living in this rape culture, do about this particular case, about the case of the "Stanford Swimmer", is to eradicate that phrase from our vocabulary concerning him. We focus on what's important. We focus on what is vital history remembers about this man.

His name is Brock Turner.

And he is a rapist. 

The Loss of Little Girlhood

While waiting for my optometry appointment yesterday, I was reading a magazine, and came across an article speculating on Prince William and Duchess Kate's unborn baby's gender. Apparently, while no official gender has been announced, people think they'll be having a girl. I thought the article was cute, if a little bit superfluous, until I came to a paragraph talking about what it would mean for William and Kate to have a girl, and I was angry.

A line in the article detailed how as soon as the baby is born- let me repeat that- as a one-day-old, newborn baby-she would be a "fashion icon." 

Putting aside how utterly ridiculous it is to call a tiny human who can't even roll over yet a fashion icon, and believe me, I could write pages on that, there is something even more disturbing about that sentence, about that idea. 

The underlying current of the climate this baby, if it is a girl, would be born into is already based on how she would be dressed and how she would look, before she has a chance to take her first steps or say her first word. Tell me that isn't sick.

This illustrates a very ugly trend I've noticed, both in my life and in the media, of both the heavy emphasis society puts on the beauty if little girls and the over-sexualization of them. Just last month, while eating dinner with my mother at a restaurant, we witnessed a woman stick her toddler-aged daughter on the table and announce loudly, "Look, she's going to grow up to be a stripper!" And, as though her little girl was a doll, proceeded to make her squat up and down while sticking the child's butt out as the rest of the family laughed. 

Needless to say, my mom and I were horrified. 

And not long before that incident, I saw a picture of Beyonce's and Jay Z's daughter, who is only three years old, with incredibly literate caption of  "When ur mom is Beyonce, but u look lik Jay Z's lil brother." Not even four years old, and she's already being judged on how beautiful she is. Below is a picture of the little girl on a website made for petitions to better the world and stop injustice.

Because, of course,  this is such a pressing and important injustice in this world.

Yeah, I know that there are wars and murders and rape and racism in the world, but hey, let's worry about Blue Ivy's hair.

A definite symptom of the emphasis of girls's appearances at a young age (and it's still an issue for the rest of their lives, and is a lifelong battle for us to find acceptance, from ourselves as well as others,  but I digress.), is the absolute atrocity known as TLC's "Toddler's and Tiaras", or maybe, just the children's glitz pageant industry in general.

Here's a picture of  Eden Woods. She is 9 years old in this photo.

Even worse than the caked on make-up, fake teeth, and hair extensions plastered on this child and the other little girls of the glitz pageant world, are the costumes, which are often horrendously inappropriate for the children's ages. The only time I have seen a public uproar about it is when pageant mom Wendy Dickey put her 3-year-old daughter, Paisley, in a costume based off of a prostitute from the movie "Pretty Woman."

Yeah, you heard that right.

Paisley, who is too young to understand what she's wearing. 

From the movie "Pretty Woman".

I think the reason this got so much attention is because of the connection to the very famous movie. There are plenty of other highly inappropriate costumes given to little girls.  Here are a few of them that a cursory google search brought up.

I am sick to my stomach when I see these pictures, and those making fun of anybody's appearance, especially that of a young child. It breaks my heart to think of the pressure little girls living in this twisted world face, and it's hard not to feel a little bit helpless to fix it.

We can't change what some idiots who are pathetic enough to be living vicariously through their children or attacking toddlers beauty on the internet, but what we can do is follow Ghandi's advice and "Be the change we wish to see in the world." We can build up out daughters or other young girls in out lives and teach them to be confident and strong. We can let them be little girls and get muddy and play and wear little-girl clothes instead of prematurely hurtling them into the tumultuous frenzy of being a woman in today's beauty-centric society.

And when she grows up, she will be a stronger human being because of it.

So to answer the question that started this: What should Will and Kate expect if there baby is a girl?

They can expect a lovable, strong, amazing person, just as incredible as their son.

Why I'm Not All About that Bass

Okay, It's a catchy song. I'll give you that, and I'm all for anything that's about embracing our beauty despite the ridiculous standards the media and popular culture pump out. But that being said, there is a certain way to do it.

And tearing down women who have a different body type than you while simultaneously whittling down the only self worth women are entitled to to how attractive they are to men is not the way to do it. 

In case you haven't heard, or haven't really noticed, the lyrics to the very popular song "All About that Bass" by Meghan Trainor, read as follows (With the chorus omitted to save space.) : Yeah, my mama she told me don't worry about your size
She says, "Boys like a little more booty to hold at night."
You know I won't be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll
So if that's what you're into then go ahead and move along/ I'm bringing booty back
Go ahead and tell them skinny b****** that. 

At first glance, the lyrics are cute, funny and harmless. But as I am a serious lover of all words, especially lyrics, I looked a little harder and was deeply disturbed. 

First of, can we just say, IT IS NEVER OKAY TO CALL OTHER GIRLS THE "B" WORD. I don't care if you think it's childish to use that phrasing, but I will not ever be using the actual word because I hate it. It is a word that needs to be eradicated from the English language because women are not dogs. Okay? Okay.

Now onto a topic commonly known as skinny shaming. Just because the world is starting to wake up and realize there is nothing wrong with being a plus-size woman does not mean we start hating and belittling thin women. Another phrase we need really to delete from out vocabularies is "Real women have curves." Because guess what?

This is not empowering. This is essentially saying that the only way a women is worth anything is if she has a big butt and boobs. Instead of throwing the marginalizing of women in Hollywood's face, we are perpetualizing it by saying the women are only a good as their bodies are "sexually appealing" to a certain demographic. And thin women, who we see as the favored majority, are beginning to be shamed and discriminated against. While it's so great that people are no longer commonly telling heavy women to "go eat a salad", terms like "get yourself a cheeseburger" are prevalent and cheered on.

While I appreciate the sentiment of not starving yourself...really? There's that "Real Men/ Real Women" thing again.

This also goes right along with another issue I have with the message of a song. Can we not justify our differences with "Meh, guys think I'm hot anyway." Who freaking cares? It's okay to be bigger because it does not diminish your personal worth. It's okay because it does not water down your sense of humor, or your intelligence, or your kindness or nice smile or beautiful singing voice or way with words or dancing skills or math awesomeness or whatever the crap else makes you special and unique and a good person. It just doesn't matter- it does not matter- if you are considered sexually attractive or not. 

And that goes for anyone; male, female, fat, skinny, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, or anything in between. Be a good person. And judge yourself on that.

Welcome to my Nightmare

Hello, reader. Now, I don't actually know that anyone will be reading this, but hope springs eternal in the human mind, right? Anyway, I suppose introductions are in order, due to the off chance that you don't know me in real life, and somehow stumbled upon this land mine. My name is Haley Spencer, and I'm a sixteen-year-old in a ninety-year-old's body.

Yes, I realize how pretentious this sounds, I do. But I don't say this because I'm so much better than the heathens in this decade, I don't think that our music is all terrible nowadays, and I'm not writing this listening to Frank Sinatra as I lay draped over my bed wearing a poodle skirt and saddle shoes. I say this because I'm grumpy, frustrated by loud children, slightly afraid of teenagers, and my joints hurt. 

As for the title of this post, I want anyone reading this to know that while the heading of this post combined with the name of this blog, may lead you to believe this is going to become an angsty, whiny diatribe, I hope it will not. I have a lot of ideas and opinions, and to avoid getting punched out, I'm posting them here, at a safe distance from anyone reading. 

(Aside: It may become pretty clear that I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to anything technological, so I apologize. My sister told me that adding pictures will break up the monotony of a my onslaught of words, and I have no pictures to post so..here are some inexperienced selfies.)

I don't even know what this is.

 

Now, to the issue I want to write about today. I attend a high school, as most people my age do, and I was running late to school today, as most people my age often are.

As I was hurrying along the sidewalk, trying to walk fast while not harming myself or anyone around me (which can be embarrassingly difficult for me sometimes), a pair of adults shoved a packet of papers in my hand, and I didn't think much of it. Homecoming just happened, and for some reason, I thought it had something to do with that.

But then, I opened the pamphlet. And my eyes were absolutely assaulted with horrible, graphic pictures of babies (or fetuses, if you prefer, but a baby is a baby.) torn to shreds. I closed it immediately and threw it away, but the damage was done. I spoke to others at the school, and no one else was prepared for the material of the pamphlet either.

Now, I am a vehement pro-lifer, and believe people should be able to express their opinions. But to stand outside of a high school, full mostly of minors, and pass out disgusting, horrible, disturbing photographs like that without warning is inexcusable, and it is, in my mind, a form of assault. I felt angry, disgusted, and powerless to erase the images now imprinted in my brain.

 And, another reason this is so awful, if someone is so upset over the death of these children, why in the name of all that is holy would you exploit their little broken bodies so horrifically?  It's such a sensationalized tactic, it's sting is lost to those whose minds they're trying to change, and to those, like myself, who already hold the beliefs they are propagating, it's a total sucker punch to the stomach. So what are they trying to accomplish, and what have they managed to do?

If they were handing out simple, earnest facts, more minds would be changed, or at least would listen. People usually see those images, presented with no warning, and throw the pamphlets away. Nothing is accomplished, besides alienation.

Okay... so mood swing now, back to Tentative Teenage First Time Blogger. I hope to continue this, and if you have any questions, comments, or thoughts (and I'm cool with constructive critisism. I'd appreciate it actually. :)) So... Whoomph there it is. Hopefully, I'll be writing again soon, and you'll be wanting to read it.