Spilt Tea

Ever offered someone a cup of tea? they’ve said “yes”, you’ve made it for them, drank it together and it’s been great.

What about offering someone a cup of tea, they did say yes but the water was boiling they said, “I’ve changed my mind, not right now”. You don’t drink it together, but they were polite about it and you can drink tea another time and even with other people.

Imagine, if someone fell asleep before they could drink the tea, so you poured it down their throat. Or maybe they were drunk and wanted it to sober up but also fell asleep so you did the same. They couldn’t say no to the tea then and because they were unable to, you forced it on to them anyway. Or what about they change their mind, whilst you’re holding the cup of tea, so you chuck it over them and they try and leave but still you keep throwing tea at them maybe even holding over them down to drink it.

Sounds crazy right? Well what if I told you over 90% of the tea made which is chucked, poured or forced on people wasn’t reported.

It just gets even crazier! Imagine powerful people all over the world who’ve been doing this for years and getting away with it! And the people who do report that tea has been poured on them are often shunned, shamed, called liars, attention seekers, and frauds. Even though, they remember it happening and have mental and physical burns from where the hot tea affected them.

150 million girls worldwide under the age of 18 who have suffered some form of “tea” being spilt on them or, a little over one in five women has experienced it in the 28 states of the EU. Didn’t realise people were so rude about tea? Those statistics aren’t so fun when they aren’t about tea. I’m not actually talking about tea. I’m talking about sexual assault, harassment and rape. They also aren’t about tea when you begin to realise they are about sisters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, friends and colleagues who you know.

That’s why around midnight on the 6th October when Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the supreme court, I thought about psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford who had told her story about how he’d forced tea on her in front of the world. Yet the very justice Brett Kavanaugh claims to represent doesn’t seem to care about tea being chucked, poured or forced on people.

In fact, they’d rather just enable it. A President who believes, it is okay to brag about grabbing women without their consent, nominated Brett Kavanaugh. The same president whose lawyer Michael Cohen paid $130,000 to Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels the pornographic actor, to keep her quiet about the extramarital affair with Trump a month before the elections. Brett Kavanaugh is now a member of the highest court in the United States. Everyday the man who appointed him undermines democracy and mocks the constitutional values of the US; the same values that Kavanaugh claims to hold dear.

Next time you read statistics about sexual assault, harassment and rape, take a moment and think of how you respond to them. If they don’t shock you or upset you because of how they have been normalized by society and you shrug them off, imagine someone chucking a cup of tea on someone else. If that’s more outrageous to you, I hope this gets you thinking and questioning why we have to resort to analogies like these to be understood. I’ll be happier, and so will every single woman you know.

Words by: Elsa Wickes

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