The news is full of Donald Trump’s egregious predatory behavior towards women spanning the decades since he was a young teen to today. Women are coming forward and I applaud them. There aren’t many women who can say they have never been sexually harassed or violated. I have experiences in my young life that go the distance. I never came forward but not because I was timid. I just never thought I had a case. Remember, it was the 50s.

I also took personal responsibility for these events in the sense that I was annoyed I caught on too late to save myself. You should be smarter than that, I told myself. The one thing I did not do, that wasn’t part of my self image, or my emotional mind-set, was to spend any time thinking about any of it after the fact. In my mind, this was the narrative, “okay, that happened, watch out in future," and “next”. I seem to have been born with armor as an emotional barrier to unsavory events.

Of course, where Trump is concerned, there is little or no way to protect yourself. It isn’t as if you’re on a date and the date is starting to act funny. With Donald, it’s “Hello, pleased to meet you,” and in an instant he’s on you.

I do think we fail in educating our young girls about the surface behavior that should be suspect. There is a politically correct perception not to blame the victim. Of course, we shouldn’t, but at the same time we should sharpen the senses of our girls to potentially disastrous consequences of going to a liquor party on a university campus, and being totally unaware that someone could put a date rape drug into your drink. The jungle has invaded our socially acceptable venues – like campus parties. So be alert. Never think, “this couldn’t happen to me,” or “he is so nice, he wouldn’t try anything,” It’s “nice” to be concerned about because that is how a predator may gain trust.

Women should be allowed to dress anyway they like without inviting rape. Reality: You will attract more attention so unless you are prepared to fight people off, don’t wear extremely revealing clothing to a Cheap Street bar. Unless you’re armed and prepared to shoot. Of course, we should be punishing the violators so that the legal system can help turn this tide. But how fast do you think that will happen? It takes a total reversal of the way we raise our sons to stop the tide. In addition to legal action, we should be simultaneously working on that. In the meantime, it’s just common sense not to invite disaster.

I and Rose, the sister of my first boyfriend (he was killed by police in a robbery – this was Chicago in 1948 -- shoot first -- and, no, I didn’t know my boyfriend was doing this) knew a lot of marginal people. Rose and I spent a lot of time hanging out after this event. Some friends of her brother would sometimes take us out. Nothing sinister, no relationships developed. It was family looking out for family. But once in a while, a really bad character would show up.

Incident. Rose and I and a normal friend were having a drink in a decent bar. Friend of a friend of this friend joins us, an older character. Time to leave, he has a car, he is taking us all home. He drops everyone but me off first and then tries to rape me in the car. I tried to push him away. He was so powerful, it was like pushing against a brick wall. I screamed. He was instantly on the alert – turns out he feared parole violation. Also, at 17, I was under age. In a rage, he dumped me out of the car in this strange neighborhood late at night. I was grateful beyond belief. I walked until I recognized a familiar street, and guided myself to a streetcar route going my way. End of incident. But, and I laugh about this, the attempted rapist complains the next day to the other guy that it was Rose’s fault because she had “warned me against him”. Didn’t happen. She didn’t know.

Anyway, it appears there is a subset of the American culture that is still firmly in this camp of my way or else with regard to relationships with women. I also think that college-educated people are guilty of unwitting bias against equality of the sexes. And, of course, if one is to believe that college students come mostly from the middle class, the class with family values always front and center, why is there so much rape on campus? Obviously, even the middle class is infected with gender inequality. Somehow, otherwise decent young men have come to see women as objects, their concerns are not important, they are here for entitled young men to enjoy, to dump when they are bored, their “no” means nothing, and they should disappear when it’s time for someone new. Definitely Trump is a product of this kind of upbringing.

Anyway, nothing that has happened to me has hung on in my mind, on the conscious or unconscious level, as being my fault. I was fortunate to be born with a center that no one can touch. When I was rejected, or hurt, or otherwise put in a no-win position, I never thought of myself as being the cause.

And I had a secret: I knew I was underestimated and that I would grow up and prove it.

I lived my young life in Chicago’s inner city. It was rather grungy, but I did not mind. It was, actually, a very interesting world and very diverse. The Chicago I knew no longer exists. I dreamed about it for years after I left. I was always, in the dream, trying to reach my mom, taking the streetcar to our address, getting off at the corner, running to our doorway, looking up the stairs, calling out. Hoping against hope to again see her dear face. You can’t go home again.

xx, Teal