Before the plane took off, he allegedly tried to take a photograph of the older sister, who was seated in the aisle seat, but she covered her face. During the flight, the younger sister, who is 16, said Wallace took out some pre-torn strips of white athletic tape from his backpack and used a figure eight pattern to tie her hands together with the tape.

The older sister managed to free her sister, tearing off the tape with her teeth. Afterward, Wallace allegedly tried to tape the older sister’s hands to those of her younger sibling, according to the document.

How the hell does someone tape someone’s hands together on an airplane? Well before I was 16 years old, no one I didn’t know would have been able to manage that without quite a fight and a big scene being made.

I’ve read several stories lately in which women have, to put it bluntly, been abused in public in some way and been total pussies about it. I already tossed the other links, and I’m not going to go find them again, but since this particular rant has been building for a while, I have to rant about women, public abuse, and the seeming inability of the modern woman to protect herself from mild forms of abuse or attack.

The very first thing my parents taught me when I was first beginning to venture beyond their immediate realm of protection was if anyone ever tries to do something to you that you DO NOT WANT, make a scene. Get people to look. Let others in the area know something is going on. If there isn’t anyone around, be as loud as possible while running away to a more public area. It’s common sense. The person doing something he shouldn’t be doing does not want a bunch of eyes peering at them and possibly getting involved. If I were sitting on a plane, presumably filled with people, there is no way in hell someone would pull out pieces of tape and successfully manage to tape my hands together. Not at 16 years old, and likely not even at 6 years old. There would have been the mother of all scenes being had. I’d have been loud. I’d have been standing up. People would have been looking.

In another instance of a woman handling harassment badly, there was a woman recently — also on an airplane presumably filled with people — who was being sexually harassed by a male flight attendant. He was, in fact, acting like a somewhat bothersome asshole, but they were on a plane. It’s not like it was a dark alley somewhere. What did she do after he wouldn’t stop hitting on her and showed her naked photos of himself on his cell phone? She ran and hid in the bathroom, and of course, he followed her and kept harassing her through the door. You don’t run away from the crowds when you are in trouble, and you don’t sit there quietly being scared! She didn’t say anything to anyone until after the flight was over and some time had passed. What the hell?! The right course of action would have been to rebuke him loudly enough for others to hear and to bring in other flight attendants. Make a scene, don’t run and hide in the bathroom!

OK, I lied, I went and found the link, because you just have to read it yourself. She really handled it poorly, and now she’s completely traumatized.

“I don’t think I will ever get over it,” she said. “I think it will always be there in my mind.”

This woman has apparently lived a very sheltered life. I pray nothing worse than an overbearing asshole inappropriately hitting on her ever happens to her. Watch the video. She’s completely broken because of an incident I think most women my age have encountered at least once in their lives. I assure you I have — and worse — and the utter inappropriate assholes hitting on me after I said “no” didn’t even leave a mark on my psyche. And how much better would it have been for her to stand up to him right then and there rather than waiting months to complain? Everyone would have known something was going on before my plane even got near an airport, and if it was so egregious I thought the police needed to be involved, I wouldn’t have left the airport until they were there.

And right here in town, there have been a number of women being groped in public … at bus stops or while jogging. They believe it may be the same guy in all instances. In the two most recent events, the man walked up to a woman, groped her, and then “casually” walked away. OK, my first question is how did these women allow this man to get that close to them without already being on guard? When I am out in the world, as soon as someone gets within my perimeter, I am aware of them. By the time they are close enough to touch me in any way, I am prepare for anything to happen. Not fearful. Not expecting anything to happen. Prepared and aware. I don’t allow people to get that close to my person, in general. I have a perimeter that once broached means I need to raise my awareness and pay attention.

Some of you may recall I had an incident with someone being creepy and standing well within my perimeter myself, and how did I handle it? I made a bit of a scene by talking loudly to that person. Had he not backed off and others gotten involved, I would have moved myself and continued to make a scene … or I may very well have elbowed him in the gut. Yet this guy just walks up to women, in broad daylight and public places, and gets close enough to them to grab their privates? How?!

And then … they let him walk away. F*cker better be running, and he better hope I don’t follow! I’ve been grabbed in public. I wish we had that scene on video. It would be educational to some women. Aside from shouting loudly to draw attention, I kneed the ass in the groin, which greatly inhibited his ability to casually walk away. It isn’t possible for me to not react loudly and perhaps even aggressively if someone grabs something they shouldn’t. That is, in fact, a perfectly normal reaction. Yet here we have women who don’t seem to really be reacting at all as things happen to them.

What the hell has happened to women? Why are they becoming such fainting little flowers so terrified of making a scene they don’t stand up for themselves? It’s not just these three stories. I read about this stuff all the time, and women no longer know how to react to anything. They just take it, let it “destroy” them, and really don’t fight back until they think about it for a while, if at all. It’s as if women are stepping back into a time when men were all-powerful and women just had to take what they were given for good or bad without complaint! It disgusts me.

Grow a backbone. Stand up for yourself. Do not be afraid to call attention to yourself wherever you are if someone is doing you wrong, and if necessary, be prepared to physically defend yourself. Be loud! Women aren’t frail little things that can’t put up a fight! These same common sense rules work for men and children too.

No one would ever tape my hands together unless I was willing, in public or not. No one would walk up to me, grab me, and then casually walk away. And some guy telling me how much he wants me and showing me naked photos of himself — or even showing me his nakedness in person without my asking — would not leave me sobbing and an emotional wreck 8 months later and scarred for life. I am not an exceptional woman. There really isn’t anything that makes me greater, stronger, or better than any average human female. I’m just a tiny little wisp of a thing, and other than possibly being slightly more intelligent and better educated than average … I am completely average and normal in every way. There isn’t anything special about me. I am not Superwoman. My life hasn’t been filled with things millions and millions of my peers haven’t experienced. I have no special training. Yet I don’t let anyone get away with any of this nonsense. I don’t take crap from anyone, and it takes a lot to traumatize me. In fact, I haven’t encountered such a thing yet, even though there have been some pretty awful events in my life, and I refuse to believe I am so terribly much stronger mentally than anyone else on the planet.

How is it then that my peers seem to be so incapable of handling things that in my view are actually somewhat minor events? Seriously, all three of these instances would have been viewed by me as very minor events. Blog posts. Stories to tell when I am old. After I was done being angry about it, I’d probably start laughing. I was angry the day that guy was being creepy at the grocery store, but the next day, it was a story I told my friends and laughed about. Just one more run-in with a crazy person on the road of life. Why should I let such things make me crazy and leave me an emotional wreck?!

So women of the world, please start standing up for yourself! Don’t just sit there and take shit from someone while fearfully quaking. We have come so far in gaining equality, I refuse to sit by and watch as women decide they want to be simpering idiots with no voice and no control over what happens to them. Well, I am not having any of that nonsense either. Get angry and not scared, and for the love of all that is holy, learn to make a scene and fight back. Take a class if you have to. We’ve come a long way, baby. Please let’s not go backwards at this point.