COLUMN: “You Do Uterus” reflects the diversity of women’s experiences

Since the advent of “You Do Uterus” in January, I’ve strayed from referencing my personal life in an effort to avoid making this column about me. Rather, every week, I’ve made it a goal to try my best to use this column as a platform to speak to the experiences of as many women as possible.

Then, last week, an influx of allegations that former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly had fostered a culture of sexual harassment and disrespect toward female employees began to dominate the news cycle. I was shocked by the extent to which this news affected me. The allegations reminded me of the very personal experiences that have defined me as a feminist and as a woman, and additionally reminded me of universal elements of womanhood that I’ve failed to address in “You Do Uterus” this semester.

Allegations against O’Reilly vary in levels of lewdness — they range from name-calling to violent threats to masturbating on the phone with women, but they all indicate one thing: To O’Reilly, women were sex objects, plain and simple.

I don’t reference this scandal because I’m naive enough to believe that a man using a woman’s gender and appearance to degrade, sexualize and intimidate her is some rare, monumental phenomenon. It’s terrible; it’s soul-crushing; it’s utterly disgusting — but ask any woman, and you’ll find it’s neither rare nor monumental.

Ultimately, this scandal and the uncomfortable, infuriating details take me back to being 16 years old. Because when I think about how I became who I am today, that’s where it all starts.

Like pretty much any other high school student in a predominantly wealthy, Asian American Bay Area suburb, I was clumsily chasing perfect grades and doing whatever it took to please my loving, albeit demanding, parents. But outside of this, I was also dealing with a personal hell — a poorly timed sexual awakening fraught with pressure, shame, disapproval and, naturally, sexual harassment. The details were messy and, for any normal person, deeply uncomfortable, and I’ll happily withhold them.

But there were some defining incidents I’ll never forget, no matter how hard I try to — incidents that stared me in the face and told me, “You are a woman, and this is what it means to be a woman.”

I will never forget the horror and disappointment of my mother, whose favorite thing in the world was to take me to church every Sunday morning, when she received a phone call from a peer who claimed I had had sex with another girl’s boyfriend. That was when I began to realize that no one is half as interested in truth and women’s perspectives as they are in narratives that label, blame and degrade women.

As far as all the people who heard things through the hateful, sexist grapevine knew, he and I had allegedly done the same terrible thing, yet I watched as he was vindicated, forgiven, even treated as a victim, while I faced ostracism, slut-shaming, even the involvement of my parents as if I deserved blame and punishment and he did not. I repeat: He and I had allegedly done the same terrible thing. The difference was that I was female. I was a “slut.”

It’s a matter of objective fact demonstrated by case studies and research spanning over the course of decades — where young women are punished and maligned for being sexually active, for making choices about their bodies, in contrast, young men are glorified. Granted, the context was not quite so simple, but my experiences revealed a lot to me.

And it certainly didn’t help my case that I could count on two hands the days I chose to wear a bra over the course of my four years in high school. To be called a “whore,” a “slut” — to my back, to my face, to my friends and, as previously noted, even to my mother — for having the audacity to be young and female and, God forbid, make choices about my body, prioritize my physical comfort, explore and be myself — almost three years later, I’m grateful for all of these experiences that have allowed me to grow. But I’m not going to sit here and lie that it wasn’t painful, even traumatic for me, at the time.

I know that my experiences do not speak to those of transgender women whose right to use the bathroom is a matter of contentious political debate. My experiences do not speak to those of young women born into communities where they are more likely to be trafficked than to receive an education, of Muslim women whose hijabs are ripped from their heads for the supposed crime of walking down the street. My experiences do not speak to those of women in rural communities whose bodily autonomy has been sold away to gratify ideological hardliners, to the experiences of the sexual assault survivors who are looked in the eye and called liars by law enforcement.

But my experiences speak to the definition of the seemingly lighthearted pun-slash-feminist rallying cry, “You Do Uterus.” That is, no matter the color of our skin, what genitals we were born with, what career paths we choose to pursue, whether or not we want marriage or children — we all have defining experiences that show us what it means to be a woman. And we all respond to these experiences in our own ways.

That is the beauty of womankind — our diversity of identity and experience, and ultimately, our resilience. We take those diverse experiences and make choices about how we respond to them, rise above them, transform them into something meaningful.

When I was 15 and my greatest worry in life was the possibility of getting a B+ in my chemistry class, my father gave me the only piece of advice I’ve ever needed since. There are only two kinds of problems: problems you can solve, and problems you can work around.

But over the years, from all the personal losses and struggles — some of which crushed me, some of which I truly believed at the time that I would never rebound from — I’ve realized there is a third kind of problem that my father failed to note: the kind of problem that you grow and reinvent yourself from.

And I’ve discovered this because I am a woman, and for all that I’ve experienced and pushed myself through because of this, I take immense pride in being one. I can’t wait to share this advice from my father, modified by my experiences as a woman, with my daughters someday (because yes, I want to have children, and no, that doesn’t make me any less of a feminist).

From harassment and pain, I found empowerment in self-expression, in learning about the experiences of others, both similar to and different from mine. I found it in researching, writing, absorbing perspectives and making cohesive written arguments. Writing was how I processed, responded to and overcame my struggles as a woman. It’s not for everyone, but it certainly was fulfilling for me.

One of the first opinion pieces I ever published was called “I’m a teen victim of sexual harassment and here’s why Free the Nipple matters to me,” which I wrote for Feministing in response to the treatment I received as a result of my lifestyle choice. I read back on it two years later and the language, syntax, sentence structure — all of it makes me cringe. But regardless, when I read it, I remain empowered because I can pinpoint the exact moment that I started to become me. The night I wrote that piece — that was it.

The latest Fox News scandal struck a chord with me because sexual harassment is precisely the force that tore me away from my otherwise cozy, privileged life. It was what forced me to care and educate myself about the pain of others who faced identity-based attacks and oppression greater than what I faced. That was what made me realize my yearning to devote the rest of my life to writing about and shining a light on all of these experiences.

And when I think about how few of these allegations against O’Reilly were new, how many have been in circulation for years, I think of the people who raise their brows in pessimism, who express doubt when I tell them some of the words I’ve been called, the things people have said and done to me. And at once, I empathize.

To me, “You Do Uterus” is a phrase that acknowledges the vast range of experiences of those who identify as women around the world. It acknowledges the diversity of choices we make, and how those experiences and those choices are what make us the unique, equally valuable women we are.

Kylie Cheung is a freshman majoring in journalism and political science. She is also the editorial director of the Daily Trojan. Her column,“You Do Uterus,” ran every Thursday.