Three years ago today, I was icing my knuckles because I’d …

After I explained to a club manager what had happened, he ooked at my Beloved and asked me “Why didn’t you let your husband take care of it?” I almost beat him up too.

“First of all, he’s not my husband. Also, this is my body, I take care of it.” https://t.co/SqzluTtJKb

Patriarchy enables and protects men who sexually assault women, and it demands that only other men “protect” us.

As long as we obey and behave in ways it approves of, of course. Protection is conditional.Because if we disobey, ha! I don't want to be protected. I want to be free

I started #IBeatMyAssaulter and women from around the world shared stories.

Five days earlier, I had started #MosqueMeToo to talk about being sexually assaulted during pilgrimage and women from around the world shared stories 🎥 @rerutled

And between the two #, men were showing me how easily the goal posts can move.

Under #MosqueMeToo men asked me, “Why didn’t you make more of a fuss?” Under #IBeatMyAssaulter men said, “You made too much of a fuss. You were too violent. Don’t you think you overreacted?”

It didn't matter: hijab or tank top, a man’s hands still found me.

If at most sacred of temples-holiest site of my religion-I am not safe from predatory hands, where am I safe? If at most secular of temples-a club-predatory men also insist on assaulting us, where are we safe?

And now with spike in intimate partner terrorism during the pandemic: I wonder why those abusive men never fear that those women they live with could poison their food or simply kill them in their sleep for being abusive fucks. (From 2020) 🎥 @rerutled

I am not asking that question to put the burden of fighting back on women. Many do, and they are punished more severely for fighting back than are the men who beat/assault them. Prisons around the world are full of women who fight back & streets are full of men who assaulted them

I know that we can’t always fight back. My priority is to survive. I never want what I have shared here to make anyone feel guilty for not beating up her assaulter.

I also know that we are not socialized to fight back. We are not taught to fight back. https://t.co/SqzluTtJKb

Men are not socialized to expect us to fight back.

How long must we wait until men stop beating and murdering us, even under #COVID19 lockdown? Where is the vaccine against that violence?

🎥 @rerutled

I am glad I found my assaulter. I sat on top of him & I punched & I punched & I punched his face. And I yelled at him “Don’t you ever touch a woman like that again!”I wanted him to know that next time he thought he could assault a woman, she too could beat the fuck out of him.

When I stopped, the fucking asshole stood up and turned to look at me. I looked right back at him. I wanted him to see this average height woman and remember her as the harbinger of more rage and more punches to come. I beat him and It was fucking glorious https://t.co/SqzluTtJKb

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Prisons around the world are full of women who fight back & the streets are full of the men who assaulted them.

"The vast majority of women in prison have been victims of violence prior to their incarceration incl domestic violence, rape, sexual assault" https://t.co/TIIgNzaC8F

"The average prison sentence for men who kill their female partners is two to six years By contrast women, who kill their partners are sentenced on average to 15 years." https://t.co/7zuyt0xyvk

In 2019, the imprisonment rate for African American women (83 per 100,000) was over 1.7 times the rate of imprisonment for white women (48 per 100,000). https://t.co/79JbHesJ2V

“The legal system is designed to protect men from the superior power of the state but not to protect women or children from the superior power of men,” U.S. feminist psychiatrist Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery, The Aftermath of Violence-From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror