I Am Woman

Day 16

I'm glad that I live in America where women are respected and are given the opportunity to voice their opinions when/wherever they want without fear of oppression.

In my Modern Germany class  we had to read an excerpt of a book, A Woman in Berlin.

I knew what it was about  before I read it, I didn't really get anything from it...

until today.

In class we were discussing what we read. I knew that there were some pretty explicit details about the many times that this woman was raped.

Yet I detached myself. I thought 'this would never happen to me' then a girl, Tess, spoke up.

She talked about how

horrific

it is to be in a situation where you have to choose the lesser of two evils:

to be raped, or to be killed.

All of a sudden, I just couldn't hold it in anymore. My eyelids wouldn't blink fast enough to keep the tears back.

I just couldn't help but think

'what would I do if I were placed in this situation?'

another girl, Courtney [most of the class is girls] said that she would rather commit suicide than to be repeatedly raped and abused by someone she barely knew.

'would I be able to handle that? would I take the suicide route? would I attempt to run away just

     to be brought back again and be beaten ruthlessly?'

These are some things I have been thinking quite heavily on for the last few hours.

I keep coming back to the thought that

I am so glad to live in America.

I am so glad that I can go out at any time and not feel threatened. I love that I can drive down the street

without having to lock my car doors. I love that it's not a big deal if I forget to lock up my house.

we look out for each other here

and it's something that I

NEVER

want to take for granted again.