To build a culture of inclusion — where everyone is welcome to contribute — we must understand what creates imbalance. In ourselves and in our communities.
“To know a predator, you must know what it is to be prey.” @arikia on casual predation & street harassment is an essay worth reading if you want to understand what it feels like. In some cases I’ll riff off essays I find in some way to add to the original author’s case. But because I’ve lived this idea of “prey” in relatively innocuous settings such as traveler but also more difficult ones… rape survivor, as an incest victim, as an Islamic-raised woman who was expected to be part of a property exchange…I think this needs no other commentary but to say, read it.
What tends to happen to a person when she is shown she is vulnerable day after day is she begins to accept it, and this mentality follows her everywhere. When you’re prey, sometimes you stop being able to tell the difference between the life you choose because you want it, and the life that you settle for because the alternatives are too scary.
Full link here:
