Trigger Warning: Reference to child sexual abuse.

When did you first learn that you shouldn’t trust women? Or a better question might be, when did you learn to trust men more than you trust women? I remember the first time someone approached me with this question. I thought, “No one taught me not to trust women, and I do trust them.” However, that seed helped me have the courage to examine myself and the world around me. I began to see just how many messages I was given that women shouldn’t be trusted.

Early in life, we start by learning to mistrust our own emotional compass. Little girls (and boys, for that matter) get the message that their own feelings are silly. “I don’t want to hug Uncle Bill; he scares me….don’t be silly go give your uncle a hug.” This interaction ostensibly says don’t listen to your own feelings because it might hurt your uncle’s feelings. His feelings are more important than yours. No one actually says that second part, but I learned quickly that it was more important to put a box around my feelings so I could accommodate someone else’s feelings.

I heard adults making comments about women in swimsuits, women who were angry, women who were “those women” (whatever that means), women who didn’t know their place, women who didn’t understand that being a mom was most important, women who chose to work, women who worked in politics, women who didn’t fit in the box women were supposed to fit in. Those judgments sunk in deep, and I took all of them to heart.

I rarely heard women praised for anything except for motherhood, and even then, that praise only happened a couple of times a year. I learned that maybe moms could be trusted, but only as long as they stayed within the narrow and unspecified boundaries of what righteous motherhood meant. Moms who made mistakes took the blame for everything. If a kid was loud or disobedient, their mom wasn’t doing her job. If a child made bad choices, it was because their mom had not done something right. If kids got bad grades, their mom wasn’t helping them enough. If they helped and their child got good grades, then “even a homemaker could do it.” If a mom worked and her kids did anything wrong, it was because women who worked outside the home couldn’t be trusted. I learned that it was quite impossible to tell if a woman could be trusted.

In a similar vein, I was taught to pray to a father god and that it was wrong to pray to a mother god. I was told stories about how God didn’t want us to pray to her because we might take her name in vain. I learned that even our mother god needed to be protected. She could not be trusted to handle our prayers or criticism. These stories taught me that I could not trust adult women to manage their own emotions and that I should go through men to find the truth.

I learned about male prophets, male doctors, male leaders, male warriors, male martyrs, and male politicians, but I almost never saw or heard about women in those positions of power. How could I have learned to trust a woman over a man when not even my father god, my prophets, leaders, and historical figures believed that trusting women mattered? No one was quoting women. No one was sharing stories of women who were educated, knowledgeable, filled with righteous indignation, or historically important.

I learned to speak male quickly to receive even a modicum of respect in my community. I read and cited men to get men to believe me. I memorized scriptures written by men about men. I learned how to keep my emotions in check so that it didn’t seem like I was manipulating men. I learned to hide and keep my thoughts to myself until they were so well-researched they were indisputable. I didn’t make thoughtless mistakes of opinion because, even from a very young age, all of my opinions were backed by my research based on male voices. I read all the male texts I could get my hands on, especially scriptures, because I learned that scriptural men absolutely knew more than women. I learned not to trust myself as a woman and to mistrust and undervalue other women.

Frank (2010) points out that there are stories we know and believe on such an intimate level that we don’t question them. Those stories live on our skin and in our blood. They tell us how to act, what happens when someone does not act in accordance with the cultural rules, and what kind of people don’t follow the rules. For example, I was raised in a conservative patriarchal religion where I learned that modesty was a vital component of being a righteous woman. This meant that girls who showed their shoulders or knees were asking for ‘it.’

I don’t remember the first time I was told that I needed to be modest so that I didn’t tempt men. It was likely before I, at eight years old, told my mom that I wouldn’t wear my new swimsuit that showed my stomach. I knew women’s bodies couldn’t be trusted well before my body should have been tempting to anyone. The message that I shouldn’t trust my girl body because it makes men ‘feel things’ was loud and clear.

I never heard that men shouldn’t sexualize girls and women. Instead, I learned to believe that it was my own fault men sexualized me because I lived in a girl body that had shoulders and knees and, someday, might have boobs. I learned that if I allowed men to see my shoulders, knees, stomach, etc. I might get hurt. I learned to blame other women for getting attacked or assaulted because they showed too much skin. I learned that I shouldn’t trust women because they were tempting to men.

No one had to teach me that girls who break the rules get molested. The first time a man touched me inappropriately, I was four, and I didn’t tell anyone. I believed it happened because I broke the rules. My mom had told me not to go in the street, but a grown-up (grown-ups were always in charge) had asked me to come over to see his puppies. I broke the rules and got molested, so I spent years afterward judging other women for breaking the rules. I judged women because they weren’t keeping themselves safe. I never thought to judge the men who hurt them.

When women or girls were assaulted, I heard questions about what she was wearing or why she let that boy take her to that dark parking lot. People asked, “Why didn’t she follow the rules?” Her assault was her fault before any assault was committed.

I remember the first time a boy drove me into a dark alleyway. My brain fired on all cylinders as I

fought between the oft-told ‘girl-instructions’ that I needed to be nice to him and the sincere fear that he was going to rape me. My brain was in such a fight or flight mode when he pulled off the road that I didn’t hear him ask me if I wanted to learn how to drive a stick-shift. In my head, I was already blaming myself for whatever was about to happen because I had let him drive me to a dark alley. 

Men who assaulted or harassed women may have received some harsh words, but in the end, their actions were chalked up to boys will be boys. She was guilty because “she should have known better.” I learned to mimic those questions. Was she drinking? Did she stay out too long? Why did she let him take her to the parking spot? What was she wearing? Was he just shooting his shot? Why was she so easily offended? These are ridiculous questions to ask about a person who has been assaulted, but they definitely hold up the narrative that women can’t be trusted.

I learned that I shouldn’t trust women who reported assault because ‘those’ girls were trying to tempt good boys into having unrighteous thoughts, they were just trying to get attention, or they had a political agenda. I learned that women could only be trusted if they dressed and acted like they were sitting next to Jesus–as if Jesus wasn’t powerful enough to control his own thoughts. This mistrust in my clothing choices made me very self-conscious and self-critical about my body long before I had any curves or hormones that might indicate I would ever be a sexual human.

I was well into adulthood when I began to see how much those stories about women hurt my ability to function in the world. I didn’t know there were women who dressed in clothes that made them feel good or men who didn’t assume a woman in a short skirt was asking for their opinion or harassment. These cultural lessons taught me to exercise in long pants and t-shirts, even in the worst heat of summer. My mistrust in women told me that when two men openly groped me on a crowded train in Paris, I was likely making too big of a deal out of it. They were probably just having a joke on the American girl. My lessons that women can’t be trusted led me away from trusting myself.

I learned early and often not to trust women and have spent a decade unlearning those lessons.

We tend to believe and repeat the stories our culture, family, religion, and media tell us. We learn early that questioning these stories will affect our ability to belong. Questioning these narratives at one end of the spectrum will make our loved ones and friends uncomfortable. On the other end, these questions will get you fully ostracized by your entire community. The way I believed these stories allowed me to be hurt over and over, but it was hard to think outside of them.

In relearning to trust women, I have closer relationships with friends of all genders. I have learned to trust my instincts and honor my right to speak truth to power. I have learned that there are really fantastic men who see women as full humans. I have learned there are fantastic women who know how to wield their knowledge and power to make the world a better place for everyone.

I have learned that feminism is equally important for good men and women. Feminism isn’t scary when you learn to trust women. In reality, it is a powerful tool for creating equity and justice in a world that is hell-bent on giving more power to those who already have it. However, feminism relies on the premise that women can be trustworthy and capable of making wise choices. No wonder people scoff at feminism. Relearning to trust women changes the world.

By Dr. Carrie Ann Johnson