We’ve all been Sarah Brady

My darlings, my queens, my heroines,  

Once upon a time, I stood in my bedroom packing for a holiday. My boyfriend, at the time, lay on the bed, idly flicking through his phone, one eye on me. Before I packed each item, I would hold it up and say, ‘what about this one?’ I wasn’t asking for his fashion taste or if he liked the colour, I was asking, ‘am I allowed to wear this?’

He said no to most of the bikinis. Told me they were too revealing. Many of the dresses, that I had so often worn on holiday and loved and felt sexy in, were also vetoed. Again, too revealing. That night I stayed up long after he’d fallen asleep and sewed up the middle of the one bikini he had allowed me to pack. I had sold it as an extra big one so it covered lots of flesh, and he reluctantly agreed. The next day I went to find another swimming costume that he would be okay with. I walked around every shop for hours looking for a bikini that would be deemed acceptable, that would cover up enough of my skin. I ended up buying a size 16 tankini. I was a size 8 at the time.

Later, when I showed him what I bought he smiled and kissed me and said it was gorgeous. Told me I was beautiful. Put his hand under my chin and lifted my face to his. Pushed back the hair from my face and shone all his light on me. He said he just wanted to protect me. That he did this all out of respect for me. That worthless men didn’t deserve my beauty. And I smiled. And I swallowed it. And I believed it.

So last week, as the internet raged over the Sarah Brady and Jonah Hill text messages, I stared at those messages and felt my heart break all over again because I think we’ve all been there, to some degree or another.

What kills me is the work Sarah is doing to keep Jonah happy. Just read the messages below:

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She asks him if there are any other pictures bothering him. She is willing to delete more. She is telling him she has deleted pictures and posts already. She is becoming a different woman to please the man opposite her. And my God do I recognise that. I’m not too proud to admit that I’ve done it. I’ve watched my girlfriends do it. I’ve seen women I barely know do it. Because the real universal truth is that you cannot be raised to please boys and men and then assume that when you get into a relationship with them, you’ll be able to easily say no to them, or their bullshit.

Eventually, you will learn how to say no. You’ll become a stronger woman. You’ll understand how abusive the man opposite you is. You’ll be free. You’ll cry and sob and break. Your girlfriends will help put you back together. And you will swear that a man will never take advantage of you like that again. It is a process because unlearning everything this world taught us always is.  

While we’re unlearning and becoming better, I can’t say the men around us are doing the same. So just in case you’re still learning, and we’re all always still learning, allow me to tell you a few things I have painfully learned:

• If the man you’re with has an issue with your ‘wild’ past, leave him. No one gets to hold you accountable for behaviour and choices you made before you met them. If you went out and fucked a different man every night of the week, that’s your choice, your prerogative, and not his business. He doesn’t get to comment on it or have an opinion about it. And if he feels a type of way about it, then leave him.

• If the man you’re with tries to stop you from wearing bikinis, revealing dresses, or showing cleavage, leave him. It’s nothing to do with respect and everything to do with control. A man who believes your body shouldn’t be on show is a man with deep patriarchal tendencies and while he dresses it up as love now, in five year’s time it will be abuse.

• If the man you’re with has an issue with the friends you have or the company you keep, leave him. There are going to be a lot of times when your partner doesn’t like your friends. In those instances, it’s his job to shut the fuck up, kiss you goodbye, and tell you to have a great time with your mates. If you’re trying to make him hang out with friends he doesn’t like, then you do need to have a word with yourself. Your partner doesn’t have to love your mates or hang out with them. It’s only when he's trying to stop you from seeing them, that you have a problem on your hands. And I promise you, take it from me, if you cut them out of your life for him, you will come to regret it.

• If the man that you’re with expects you to change your behaviours, but never his, leave him. If you’re the one changing everything, leave.

It may seem harsh, and I understand that terms like ‘leave him’ and ‘dump him’ have become flippant terms thrown around on social media, but I don’t use it lightly. I say ‘leave him’ in the same way I tell you not to walk into a burning building. Because I know how this ends, and I know that you will be the one to burn, not him. The women always are.

We are required to change and twist and turn. If Adam really did take out his rib to make Eve, it seems we’ve been taking out ours in order to bend over backward for mankind ever since.

I adore that Sarah Brady put Jonah Hill’s text messages out into the world. I am glad they will remain stamped onto the memory of the internet for time immemorial. I am tired of the bad behaviour of men constantly happening in whispers and quiet and dark corners. It’s time their transgressions really shone in the light. So that other women can be warned. So that men who think it’s okay are outed. But mostly, so that a woman reading those messages can say, ‘ahh yes, the same thing happened to me,’ and know that she is not alone. That she did the right thing when she left him. Or, that she sees a way out, makes an exit plan, and continues on her beautiful journey.

Believe me when I say, the best is yet to come. I’ve been at the other end of that journey and it was awful and heartbreaking, but here I am now, and it’s so beautiful over here. The best is yet to come. The best is yet to come. Say it with me, the best is yet to come.