By Jessie Kanzer
#MeTooButNotMyGirls. That is my declaration today, on this blistery New York Sunday, after my three-year-old’s swim lesson, and before my one-year-old’s gym class. I’m not here to go into the sordid details of my own pain body: the minutia of inappropriate sexual contact when I was a wee girl, the play-by-play of getting seduced (date raped?) by my college internship supervisor. We can talk about our wounds until we are blue in the face—and we should—because change is happening as we speak. But, for me, an eternal self-help’er, it’s also important to look at the “Why.” Not why they harmed me — that’s their problem, and that will be their reckoning. But why I was the easiest of prey. Why I often relinquished my power before I was even asked. What messages did I absorb during my childhood and young-adulthood? I need to know. Because, #MeTooButNotMyGirls.
“Be nice.” “Be pretty.” “Know your place.”
My formative years took place in the Soviet Union. I was taught to obey authority from very early on (I still have an inexplicable fear of cops and principals). The strictness of a Soviet daycare center was just what you would imagine it to be. And then in school, we were further stripped of our individuality and self-esteem. I was a born people-pleaser to boot, and I worked very hard to please my young parents and stoic grandmother. My strict teachers, my relentless gymnastics coaches. The passersby who expected me to smile. The family friends who expected hugs and kisses. “I’m a good girl, a very good girl,” was my motto since the age of two. Polite? Check. Cute and neat? Check. Obedient? I bucked that one at times, but not without consequence. Continue Reading…