(This was an article/ piece I wrote nearly two years ago for MeToo)

I have weighed the consequences of writing this piece and how this will be taken by society with the current war on drugs in my country. There has been an on-going war targeting the drug addicts because they will eventually turn into the monsters that will rape you, rape your sister, your mother, your daughter. There is a prevalent “take the offensive rather than be sorry” sentiment. I have heard it, I’ve seen the news feed on some of my Facebook friends’ walls, and I am there, lost as to how we can be so easily fueled by fear because of the political spinners. We forget that there are monsters scarier that the ones high on drugs. There are scarier monsters lurking in their branded Tommy Hilfiger shirts and Nike Airs.

I was around 6 or 7 years-old when my Mom and aunt warned me to be home before sundown because there was a drug addict near our place sitting on an empty lot. A scary man who was always stoned and stared blankly. We normally passed him in the morning on my way to school and in the afternoon after school. Same spot, same oblivious, empty look. They told me he was a scary man, a crazy man. Stay away from him. So I stayed away from him. When walking on that road growing up, I made sure to cross the other street to avoid him. I associated scary and crazy with his red eyes and tattered clothes. Looking back, I think I made a total disservice to the rest of the respectable people who have no means to buy new clothes and are easily dismissed by society as the scary ones to be watched-out for.

Then, college came. No one told me to be careful of this other type. I was never ready for the monster who wore Tommy Hilfiger shirts and Air Jordans. He didn’t fit the bill. He flew right through my radar. My mom and aunt never warned me of his type. I was conditioned to protect myself when it came to the stoned man on my street, but had my guard down when I met the man with branded clothes. He was good looking, in the same college as I was so he can’t be bad right?Wrong.

The social consensus on what a rapist looks like and who the rapists are, had me doubting myself whether I was raped or not. There were doubts in my head, but there were also certain things that I was sure of when the raped happened.

I can close my eyes now after nearly 13 years and can still see that day vividly, where the younger version of me physically kept stopping him from touching me, yet where he repeatedly forced his way on me. I can clearly see me on the bed staring straight right through the ceiling with no eye contact whatsoever with him. I remember the feeling of being trapped, caged and not knowing where to go. So I allowed my mind to float. There was that moment of fight, flight and froze in me, a moment wherein I questioned his ownership of my body, who would believe me, the one who cried rape. All these thoughts capsuled in a minute or two.

I remember my white cotton underwear, with strawberry glitter print on the floor.

Innocence, taken from me without my consent.

I remember my white vest, long sleeves shirt and cargo pants. Those were not sexy clothes, as was/is commonly understood, but it happened. The rape happened.

In my current line of work assisting young women in Denmark as Au Pairs and women who are exposed to violence doing workshops on sexual consent, it is often that I encounter comments from the group, e.g. “If only she wore decent clothes she would never have been raped”. Or another: “If she stayed out of that alley and went home early she would have been safe”.

These comments are reflective of how rape culture is in our society. When the president of the country passes rape as a joke, be it Duterte or Trump, how do you expect society to behave?

Rape is seen as trivial. A side note. Women who went through the incident are seen as just too liberated for their own good.

“She should have stayed home”.

“See what happens when you don’t wear decent clothes?”.

I don’t blame them, but I now have the means to facilitate change and make them understand their tolerance towards something that should never be tolerated in the first place.

Society prompts us to not get raped, instead of stop raping. But there is a shift with men taking part in the dialogue of ending violence against women. There are survivors standing up, doing something remarkable. Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault against 31 women sparked a campaign called #MeToo. Social media erupted with #MeToo everywhere. Eleven countries and around and 4.7 million people used this hashtag in social media.

There are those who criticize the campaign as just public outrage without political backing, which will eventually die down.

I take a more positive outlook on this; I believe that when society as a whole takes this as a problem, without pitting women against men, something will happen. It slowly is happening with men doing #HowWillIChangeThis.

There was that sense of euphoria-healing when I slowly typed the word #MeToo on my Facebook wall. It was powerful to feel how it was to take back something that was forcefully, without regard, taken away from you by someone you trusted.

Thirteen years. That was how long it took for me to share my voice, which made me reflect on the women I came across in the project with #DannerDK who are not ready to come out from their abusive relationships.

Not because they want to stay, but because they are trapped.

Typing #MeToo was more than a hashtag for them. It was risky. It meant life and death for them, losing their children, risking their visas, shamed, devalued as a woman.

Theirs are the voices I still worry about. Theirs are the voices that the ones who were able to type #MeToo need to empower.

So that one day, in their own time, they can finally say #MeToo, then add #NoWomanLeftBehind.