“As a woman, you should be able to say no,” 23-year-old Paris Sashay told a reporter after she was brutally beaten by a group of men.
The young comic and her friends had just left a party at a nightclub in Washington D.C. when they were followed by the men, who began harassing them. When Sashay and her friends declined their advances, the comic says the men got violent.
Sashay blacked out during the attack, and woke up in the hospital. The damage was extensive; she suffered a broken nose, chipped teeth, and her face was covered in bruises.
“Guys make it where you don’t have a right to say no anymore,” Sashay told D.C.’s NBC affiliate. “But as a woman, you should be able to say no. Just say no. You’re just not interested.”
Though horrific, Sashay’s ordeal isn’t unique. Last October, 27-year-old Mary Spears was shot and killed at a party in Detroit after refusing to give her phone number to a man, and that December, a woman riding the train in Chicago was viciously beaten for rejecting a man. These events are so common users created a website called “When Women Refuse” to keep track of them.
Despite the assault, Sashay said she’s going to keep living her life and doing what she loves.
“No matter how much it takes, I’ll just go out, perform and do whatever it takes to make the people laugh,” she said of an upcoming performance. “I won’t let the people down.”
“Why don’t girls just say no to guys they don’t like? Why do they play games instead?” This is fucking why.
