No Victim, Just Visible
By Ruby

When a woman stands up to an abuser, why do other women tell her to walk
away, that her voicing her pain and asking for responsibility make her a
victim? I never want to hear anyone  tell another woman, man or child not
to be a victim! What if we all stood up to abusers together?
    What if we walked up to men we know mistreat women and told them loudly
to stop? What if we stopped blaming the women? What if we faced our own
fear of victimhood instead? What if no one took the side of the abuser
our of fear?
    What if we didn't go to their shows? What if we didn't believe we could
save them with our love, that their love for us is different and won't
get us abused like the others?
    What if when WHYY's Terry Gross interviews some rocker bad boy, she
doesn't gloss over the collateral damage of their groupies but asks about
the humans they use and discard and fuck and fuck up? What if Bust
magazine didn't think it was cool to print a picture of dried apple Ozzy
Osborne with the quote that he's still fuckable? Would Bust print a
picture of an old saggy dyke doing that?
What if hordes of hairy scary sweaty saggy topless menopausal women roved
the fair hitting on our young people? Would we notice if it was women
instead of men?
    What if our heroes were people who treated everyone well?
    What if we were allies instead of competitors?
    Don't ever tell another woman again she's a victim. Just to admit you've
been wronged is pain enough.
To all the human beings have ever I avoided because I was scared of their
poverty, abusive relationship, disability, or other otherness,  I
wholeheartedly apologize.