Speech Contest der Jahrgangsstufe Q1 begeisterte das Publikum

Siegerrede von Janka Polachowski:

 A week ago at the dinner table, I’ve got told that feminism is overrated. That women do not need as much protection anymore:
But tell me, if they do not need more protection, how is it possible that one out of five women has experienced attempted or completed rape – if 51 % of their offenders were intimate partners. People they have trusted! How come that we don’t need help, if 97% of all women all around the world have been sexually harassed? Mostly starting between the age of 11-17 years- Minors!

But what even is sexual harassment? The definition says it’s “illegal behavior towards a person hat can cause emotional or mental harm”. It can be verbal: like some creep driving by and “complementing” your body. Sexualizing it in public and straight up assaulting you. It can be physical: Any kind of sexual touch that was made without your consent! That even though we say it’s fine – has a huge impact on our mental health. Indeed more than 50 % of all victims suffer from PTSD: Post causing depression, self-harm, eating disorders and even suicide.

But those are just the statistics, only the reported cases. Many victims don’t report, they are too scared. But why – why are they scared? They did nothing wrong. YET they get asked questions like:

 Did you say “no”?

Did you fight back?

Did you wear something sexual?

 It’s always what did you do, what did you as a victim do? And that what scares mostly women, thinking they’re the problem. Though how could they think differently, if the seeds for this mindset gets already planted since the beginning of school? Where little girls get dress-coded for showing too much skin. Where we dress too “provocative”. But what? Tell me what do we provoke? Oh, we provoke the teachers and other students so that they can’t focus on their studies? Well, then maybe the problem is not how WE dress, but how THEY think. An example: The first time I’ve got dress-coded was in elementary. I was SIX and my skirt apparently too short. So obviously I was provoking something with my six years old underdeveloped body, right?

Telling women at such an age that they need to change, that they are the problem – leads them to still thinking the same way after ages – after being sexual harassed. It makes them feel, as if it’s their fault, for not dressing or acting the right way.

But in the end people really are right: Some things need to change. However, it is not my outfit or the way I act, it’s society.