The wind at the window.

Sometimes, before I go to sleep, my mind wanders while I lie in my bed in the stillness of my room. Often, my mind goes to feminism, from there it oftentimes follows a meandering path leading towards the pain of women; the agony that so many of us endure on a daily basis. It is in these moments when the door to sleep is opening ever so slowly, that I think to myself that right now, as I lie in my bed, safe and comfortable, a woman is suffering.

Right now, while my mind is quiet and I hear the restless movement of a cold winter wind at my window a woman is being beaten at the hands of a man. Right now, somewhere in this country, women, many women, all over are being raped, beaten and even killed. The wind always seems louder in those moments and the tone of it shifts in that place between dreaming and waking. It ceases to be simply wind and slowly takes on the high pitched sound of a scream. It is a scream I know only too well.

I understand, in those moments, that I will wake in the morning. Perhaps there will be a dusting of snow on the ground as there is this morning. I will wake and I will stretch lazily. I will go to the puppy's crate and take him outside and then I'll get a cup of hot coffee and sit down at my desk. I understand, in those moments of knowing, that I am lucky today. Because, for that woman who was raped last night as I slept in blissful oblivion, with the wind screaming at my window, she will wake to death. She won't spend her morning sipping at a mug of warm coffee, relishing the feel of the hot mug in her hands, enjoying the simple beauty of snow in the grass, no, she will spend this morning burying herself. She will bury the part of her that died last night whilst I curled up in my 4 poster bed away from the cries of the wind outside.

For her, the beauty in the dusting of snow will fall dead and ugly for she has a much grimmer task before her this day. The task of "getting over it", the task of waking a changed person.

Every 20 seconds a woman is beaten by a man. That's 3 per minute. In the course of my blissful sleep that's 1440 women.

A woman is raped in this country every 2 minutes. While I was tossing restlessly trying to forget the wind 240 women died a death of the soul. While I slept last night 1680 women's lives were touched by the violence of men. Throughout the day today another 3360 will be lost.

Sometimes I think before I go to sleep and I know that right now this very moment, I am safe. I think about my safety while the wind howls at the window, while the house settles around me and it sounds like the moans of the women. I remember the moans, they have erupted from my lips before. And I know that while this night I am safe, my safety and the safety of millions of others, is not secure.

There is no power in me to change the numbers and make women safe. There is no power for me to even make myself safer. I have heard it oft recited from men, particularly men who are anti-feminist, that, "Gee, that must be a very sad and scary life to live when you fear what's around the next corner". This is said with the confidence of someone who is sure that the concern is unjustified. It is said as a dig and a slam at those goofy feminists who are afraid of rape and abuse. It is said from the haughty perspective of a person who doesn't hear the wind at his window because it's his privilege NOT to hear it.

Those words, the sentiment behind them, stop fretting over nothing you silly woman is insulting. But you know what? When you take away the pretenses and take away the voice of condescension that speaks the words, you find that he's right. It is a scary world for women.

Every 20 seconds another woman will have known the steel of a mans fist. Every 2 minutes a woman will know how it feels to die by theft of the soul.

It is a scary world and women everywhere put on a brave face and say things to alleviate the discomfort of men like this. They say things like, "Well, yeah, being beaten and raped is scary but I don't let it run my life". We say these things but how can it not run our lives? When we hear the rustling footsteps closing in on us from behind when we're enjoying a quiet stroll in a secluded park, how do we not notice it? It’s not that easy. We do notice it.

When our partner gets angry and begins to bellow and stomp around the house, when he picks something up and throws it in our direction, we remember the screams that once left our lips. I understand that there is truth in the sarcasm and I stand before you now to say, "Yes. Yes, it does suck to live under that constant weight, it is a scary place". And you know what? YOU have made it this way.

Every time you condescend to a woman, preaching about things you know nothing about, telling us, with your haughty demeanor that we're overreacting and that we're making it worse than it is, you perpetuate this cycle.

Women who hear the numbers and do the math know that they are safe right now but that our safety is not assured.

As I lay in my bed and my thoughts wander aimlessly I wonder about the women's lives who are learning about the capacity of men to hurt right now. What is their story? What have their lives been like? How will they try to overcome this night of terror? I lay in my bed and the wind gets louder and the sound of the tree overhead scraping against my roof sends chills up my spine. I know that at any moment, this could come crashing down. Maybe it will be my turn again tomorrow night, perhaps next week, maybe not for years, but one thing I can be infinitely certain of is that I won't be able to stop it.

No amount of being home by 5 pm. No amount of refraining from drinking. No amount of not wearing pony tails, of not walking alone, of sleeping with your windows and doors locked and barred will save us from what men, every man is capable of. And we know, we know this very well, that most of the violence we suffer is at the hands of men that we know.

Men hit. Men rape. Men hit a lot of women and men rape a lot of women. It is not a tiny minority of men who are perpetuating the 20 second number. It's not an infinitesimally small number of men who are raping every 2 minutes. Even among those who do not rape and do not hit there are many, many of them who use the fact that these things even exist to their advantage.

They stomp about the house in a fit of anger, shutting up the uppity bitch through fear. Then, they claim "I would NEVER hit a woman!" without saying that while they wouldn't hit a woman they also don't mind exploiting the fact that she has been hit to their advantage. They won’t actually hit a woman themselves but excuse their own tirades as just having a ‘bad temper’ when the reality is that they are exploiting her existing fear.

They say, "I would NEVER rape a woman!" but again, they forget to mention that they don't care that the woman who slept with them last week did so only because she had been raped before and he scared the shit out of her when he wouldn't take No for an answer. They have no compunction against using this knowledge to their advantage, of using the fear that others before them may have instilled into this very woman, to get the sex they hold so important.

Yes, it is a scary world for a woman who has done the research. These women who know that every single day they are fighting against statistics that make it highly probable that she will feel the violence of men before she dies. She is not making fear up just for the sake of fear. She's not hysterical and out of control for understanding that she could be next. Rape and violence against women is not an alien concept. Men hit. Men rape. Men push and stalk and kill. They do these things and we know it.

As I sit and write this now my anger from the earlier post has dissipated. Left in it's place is the empty sadness of one who understand that right now, as the wind whips snow past my window, and my fingers tap out the rhythmic tune of thought on the keyboard, a woman is understanding what violence means. Later, after I have signed off this post and hand out tests for the kids, I will know that a woman is experiencing the death of soul. It is 10:30 right now. By the time this day has run its course and I'm back in my bed, curled up, safe and warm, another 1500 women will have known the burn of violence by men.

It is elusive to me why we, as a supposedly moral and empathetic society, have not launched a war on these men. Why this society tolerates the loss of so many women each and every day. Why aren't we smashing down the doors to the White House, demanding change? I don't know. I suspect it has something to do with trying to pretend that the wind at your window doesn't really exist.

I know I do.

When I lie awake at night, waiting for the dreamy haze of sleep to envelop me I think. I hear the wind and it sounds like screams, and I hear the tree scraping the roof and it sounds like the nails of a woman buried alive trying to escape the premature death of her soul. I shudder and I draw my covers closer to me and I repeat to myself that this night I am safe. And my heart hurts and my hands tremble because I am glad that I am safe, and a part of me, a selfish little bastard thought that I can't quite stomp out, knows that in those dark moments of listening to the howls I'm glad it's them and not me.

And maybe that is why we're not beating down the doors to the White House. Maybe that's part of the reason that we seek only to pull our own covers over us that much tighter and forget the howling of the wind outside our room in which right now we are safe. Perhaps we have given into the notion that men rape and men hit and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Perhaps, the idea itself causes the fear for the knowledge that you are only safe right now is quite a burden to bear.

Whatever it is, the wind is still at my window and it still resembles the cries of the survivors and I suspect that it will continue to claw at the window until each and every one of us can go to bed and say, simply, I’m safe, right now, and always.

~BB