Quotation:

“Grace mentioned the glaring gap between Ansari’s comedy persona and the behavior she experienced in his apartment as a reason why she didn’t get out earlier. “I didn’t leave because I think I was stunned and shocked,” she said. ‘This was not what I expected. I’d seen some of his shows and read excerpts from his book and I was not expecting a bad night at all, much less a violating night and a painful one.’” -I Went on a Date with Aziz Ansari. It Turned Into the Worst Night of My Life

“They told us over and over again that if a man tried to push you into anything you didn’t want, even just a kiss, you told him flat out you weren’t doing it. If he kept going, you got away from him. You were always to have ‘mad money’ with you: cab fare in case he got ‘fresh’ and then refused to drive you home. They told you to slap him if you had to; they told you to get out of the car and start wailing if you had to. They told you to do whatever it took to stop him from using your body in any way you didn’t want, and under no circumstances to go down without a fight.” -The Humiliation of Aziz Ansari

Comment: I picked the first quote from the article about the interaction between Grace and Aziz. I picked this because I found it interesting and the statements and the claims being made had seemed too familiar to me. In today’s culture, it seems as though it is always the “good guys,” it’s always the ones that you don’t expect it from that sexually harass you and don’t understand what they did wrong, or maybe they do but they won’t admit it. This is what makes it tricky for women. The reason that women don’t always come forward about their stories is because of the people who say, “Him? No, he would never do such a thing. She’s just mad and is doing this in spite.” It’s those types of people that are the reason that a lot of women don’t share their stories or press charges against their assaulters because they fear nothing will even happen to him or people will think poorly of her instead of him. I chose the second quote because it really resonated with me. I am a fighter, I have always been a fighter. Thankfully, I have never been put in a situation where I actually needed to fight for my life or my body. But, my dad has been teaching me how to fight and protect myself since I was young. In high school, I had a lot of tough guy friends who I would wrestle with or fight with to practice my strength and they would also teach me how to fight and protect myself. They would always say something like, “Forget it, if anyone ever tries to kidnap or rape you, they’d give up because you don’t,” or something along those lines. I will kick and scratch and claw my way until I can break free, which has always been a strength of mine. This quote reminded me of my strengths. At the same time, I’m upset that a quote like this even needs to be said. I’m upset that women all around the world have to be told how to push men away, how to fight them, how to do whatever it takes to get them to stop… We should be telling men how to NOT RAPE OR SEXUALLY HARASS WOMEN. We should be educating men on consent and verbal/non-verbal cues. I just really wish this wasn’t a problem in society. 

Question: Shouldn’t we be spending more time educating men on how to control themselves, how to not rape or sexually harass anyone, what is consent and what is not, and how to pick up verbal/non-verbal cues, instead of educating women on how to fight and prevent men from sexually harassing or abusing us? 

Post Class Reflection:


My spoken contributions today (bullets, fragments, keywords)		Helping Hands Today (up to 3) – Name & Briefly Describe Contribution to Class (bullets, fragments, keywords)
~Grace was shocked that he turned out to be so violating, which is where her hesitation to leave came from
~she didn’t explicitly say no, but she verbally said no in other ways and she used body language and other non-verbal cues to say no
~we should be educating men more on this subject and how/what to do instead of women
~men can be victims of sexual assault, not as often or talked about as women
~communication is key














~Anna: society’s culture, when you’re not looking for something you don’t see it, large percentage of communication is through body language
~Maddy: you can change your mind whenever
~Haley: you don’t have to justify yourself if you say no

Today’s class discussion altered my thoughts about today’s text(s) in the following ways (link to your QCQ and/or to other ideas):

I really enjoyed today’s class discussion. I first began contributing by sharing my quote and explaining that Grace didn’t expect this situation to happen from him because he comes off as such a good guy… because of this she was just so shocked that she didn’t comprehend completely that this was happening, which is why she hesitated to leave early. Anna brought up the fact that when you’re not looking for something specifically, you don’t see it… this and the idea that some men could be very uneducated on the subject explains why Aziz could not have understood what he was doing was wrong because he wasn’t picking up what Grace was saying. I somewhat agree with this, I think Aziz could partially have not known what he was doing but at the same time Grace was being pretty clear about it. I don’t know that one is tough. I had gone in to say that communication is key in these situations. If you don’t want to do something like that, but you don’t want to be rude and just end the night, you just need to be as clear as possible, be blunt about it while trying not to be rude. If he then continues to do what he is doing, that is when I would start to be rude and just leave. Going off of this, Anna had brought up that a large percentage of communication is through body language, so it’s important to make sure you’re giving off the right body language vibe as well. But at the same time, the fact that body language is a huge percentage of communication is a great reason to make sure you’re being explicitly clear verbally, so that you know for sure they are getting the right message. My most important comment today, I think, was what I had talked about in my QCQ about how today’s society is all about educating women about what to wear/what not to wear, what to do in certain situations, how to protect yourself from predators, but I think we should be spending more time educating men on consent and body language and most importantly what sexual harassment and assault is specifically, because I feel like this would help stop a lot of it from happening in the first place.