The past two weeks have been exhausting, incredible, insane, frustrating… (insert more adjectives here).

Let me paint a picture for you. This happened two weeks ago. It was a morning like any other.  I woke up, showered, made some coffee, wished my boyfriend a good day as he walked out the door. Once he left, I decided to check my Instagram. I had a few messages sitting in my inbox that I hadn’t yet replied to. I used to pride myself on my social media management abilities but these days I’m flakier than a croissant. I replied to a few generic requests from other artists that would like to work with me and then found this gem: “Hello, I’m from the future. Future-you asked me to come back in time so I could convince you to fuck me sooner so we can have even more great sex. So let’s meet up.” I recognized the user name. This person had been following my work for a while. He knew I am a rape survivor and that I have a partner, but he chose to send me this message anyway. Oh, the hubris.  I had two options: I could ignore it and go on with my day, or I could respond and tell him what I thought of his message. I went with the latter. He handled the rejection about as well as any overly confident and predatory white male would and things quickly escalated. This was more than just a really bad pick-up line. Plot twist: he had been sending the exact same message to multiple Greener gals, specifically targeting those that live in Rock Maple and Evergreen Gardens. He likes finding the women he messages and following them on their walk to campus. So basically I found out that the creep who was insisting I have sex with him (and has seen me naked, because he follows my work) was a neighbor of mine. Needless to say, I felt even more uncomfortable. I blasted him on social media, shared screenshots of the conversation with my Facebook and Tumblr followers, then went to police services. I was not at all surprised to learn that I was not the first women that had reported his predatory behavior.

But guess what? People got mad at me. “You were too harsh on him.” “You overreacted.” “You shouldn’t be using that app if you don’t want to receive messages like that!” The most frustrating part? It was other women telling me these things.

This is the reality of our world. This is just one example of how prevalent rape culture is in our society. A man stalks me on the Internet, propositions me, asks me my schedule so he can try to follow me to work  and I’m blamed for the situation. Me telling him his behavior is both inappropriate and problematic is seen as an overreaction.

Now, I’ve always been proud to call myself a feminist. I’ve never hid from the label. The word does not scare me. However, I am only just now at a place where I can actually do something to fight the sexism and misogyny I encounter on a daily basis. Over 6,000 people follow my work. I have a smaller audience than most of the people I consider my colleagues, but 6,000 is a LOT of people. That’s 6,000 ears I can speak to. 6,000 minds I can influence. 6,000 people that pay attention to me. I realized I have a responsibility not only to them, but to myself. I’ve always used my voice to stand up for myself and others, but now my voice reaches a much larger audience. As an artist, I’ve always fought to change the narrative about female sexuality, the female body, and female beauty standards. As my audience grows, and as I step into different art mediums (the sexism I’ve experienced as a female musician/painter/writer/photographer/model is completely different than the type of sexism I’ve experiences as a female filmmaker, and I haven’t even finished writing my first film yet), I’m realizing this responsibility more and more. No, not all of my work has a “message”. But I far prefer the pieces that do.