Bloody Double Standards

All I could hear resonating over the music was, “I am going to fucking kill you.” I am naked in a tiny basement bathroom with a window too tiny to exit, drying off with an oversized plush bath towel when I heard the shrieks of a drunken psychopath. Before I could even think, I received a blow to my head and now the added scent of blood. Blood everywhere was flowing from my forehead, a feeling not so unfamiliar. What was unfamiliar was why and how, what had I done to deserve this attack?

This blood continued to flow as the knife entered my blurred vision. I thought, wait, there’s more? That’s the moment I engaged in physical defense of my life. I have had other dangerous experiences before in my life, never like this where death was eminent.

When I entered the police station I explained how I had the gaping wound on my face and asked to press charges. “You don’t get to do that,” I was told by the officer. Wait, how can this be? If it was a man whom I was attacked by it would be no question. But because a woman attacked me there is apparently a bloody double standard.