Work Text:
Antonia Elizabeth Maria Stark is 6 the first time she sees what romance is. She's just started second grade and a little boy named Victor thinks shes pretty. When he tries to make her kiss him she cries and her teacher explains that little boys and girls will grow up to be mommies and daddies and she'll be crying about boys not wanting to kiss her in a few years. When she tells Jarvis that night he calls the school and yells, but Victor keeps trying to kiss her and the teachers call it cute.
She learn that boys are supposed to chase girls and girls are supposed to like it.
Antonia Elizabeth Maria is 8 when she sees that boys get to do more than she does. She think dresses are lame and she'd much rather play handball than jump rope but her mother buys two dresses for everyone one pair of jeans Jarvis gets her and the campus assistants tell her jump rope is more suitable for her outfit than a "boy game". When she tries to join handball the older male proctor tells her "a pretty girl like you needs to play hopscotch or double Dutch so you don't dirty your little dress" and the boys cheer and say girls are too weak anyways. She plays jump rope and sings a song about kissing snakes because the teacher told her to and she doesn't want anyone to think she's not a girl.
She learns that girls have to wear dresses and be weak.
Antonia Elizabeth is 9 when she realizes girls and boys are held to different physical standards. She's slightly overweight and she hates shopping more than anything. Obadiah tells her she's beautiful, but Maria and Howard act like she's an embarrassment and start a strict diet plan. At school there's a boy who is also overweight and everyone thinks he's funny. They never call him heifer or fattie like they call her. He is kind of mean to everyone but he's allowed to wear tshirts and jeans and no one tells him he'll break the chair when he sits down at lunch. She starts avoiding the cafeteria and start eating in the bathroom.
She learns that girls have to be skinny to be pretty and liked and boys have to be funny.
Antonia Liz is 10 and she just started high school and she starts to realize boys are noticing her. Shes in advanced physics and her professor is thirty five and he takes an special interest in her. He tells her about his interest in Stark weapons and he talks about his girlfriend who left him and he makes her sit in the front so her can flirt. He kind of scares her but he's the authority figure so she listens to him and goes to the private tutor sessions he arranged even though she's better at physics than he is. She wears a dress one day because Maria insists. Starks develop a lot faster than most he tells her shes very pretty. He's staring at her chest and she feels uneasy and she tells her maids daughter. She tells Antonia it's flattering, that an older boy likes her and she agrees saying she didn't think of it like that. He asks her to a dinner at his house and she gets scared and tells Jarvis. Jarvis decides it's best to handle it without her parents intervention and he calls the school. When the principle calls her up to asks about the situation she tells him what happened and he tells her that just because her daddy's rich, doesn't give her the right to dress like a slut and try to ruin a good mans reputation. The teacher continues to flirt with her long after she stops going to the private meetings and she feels kind of ashamed but she's not sure why. When school ends for the summer shes very happy and she hopes she never sees him again.
She learns that unwanted attention is her fault, and that she should wear tshirts if she doesn't want to be harassed.
Antonia is 11 and about to go to boarding school when Obie comes over to help her pack. He's more of a father to her than Howard has ever been so when he kisses her shes so confused she doesn't react. He pushes a hand under her shirt and when she begs him to stop he doesn't. She keeps saying no but he rapes her anyways. He tells her this is what love is and she goes to boarding school with ice in her heart and Obadiah Stane's breath on her tongue.
She learns that if a man rapes her it's love.
Tonia is 13 when she experiences firsthand what it's like to be hit by a man who isn't her father. Shes been in highschool for a while but she's finally old enough for the boys to find her interesting. An 18 year old
Senior thinks she's cute and asks her out. She's still afraid the only
Man who will ever love her is Obie so she's says yes. He tell her shes beautiful and special and she thinks maybe it's true. But then he starts calling and texting all the time. And he wants to know who she's with. He gets mad that her Bestfriend is an older man. (Jarvis) Then he hits her one day when they get in a fight and she tells a girl named Sue. Suddenly all of his friends and hers know and half of them think shes lying. They say he's a nice guy and she must have misunderstood. She's young and scared so she agrees with them because she doesn't know what else to do. They break up but he never quite leaves her alone that year and she never quite stops looking over her shoulder.
She learns that boys can hit her and no one will like her if she admits it.
Tony is 15 the first time she willingly does something sexual with a boy. Shes kind of fucked up and depressed and shes trying to drown her issues with drugs, alcohol, and attention. Shes madly in love with Rhodey but he's too much of a gentleman to be anything but her friend right now and she just wants to feel numb. She's at a party when a boy convinced her to come back to his room. He has pretty eyes and a poison tongue and somehow she ends up bent over a desk getting fucked by a boy who's just in it for his five minutes of pleasure and fifteen minutes of fame. The next day she's sore and ashamed and her name is all over the tabloids with his picture. Everyone calls her a slut and she gets an angry call from Howard telling her she's nothing but a disappointment. Everyone calls the boy a legend.
She learns that boys who are sexually active are Hero's and girls are whores.
Shes 20 the first time she hears the word Feminism and shes not sure what it is. When she looks it up she see mixed things and she soon forgets about it because shes a genius engineer and she's constantly working and just doesn't have time for social issues. A while later she hears it again and this time it actually holds her interest. She reads article after article and realizes her whole life that feeling shes never been able to explain is the feeling of being oppressed. She looks back on experiences that have made her feel uncomfortable and hurt and she realizes they weren't her fault.
She learns that she doesn't have to accept these misdeeds as the norm and she leaned she's not the only person who wants to change this. Shes still young and oppressed but she's just learned there is new world just beyond the horizon and she can get there with some help from the people in the world who want to breathe equality in like we do oxygen.
She learns that girls don't have like being chased and that boys should respect no.
She learns that clothes do not have a gender and no amount of y chromosomes can determine the strength of a person.
She learns that women don't have to look a certain way to be beautiful.
She learns that what you wear does not give ANYONE the right to make her uncomfortable and if a teenage girls bra strap makes an adult male sexually aroused it is his fault and his fault only.
She learns that it is never okay for someone to hit her, and anyone who tries to convince her otherwise is wrong.
She learns that rape is never the victims fault, and no one is raped because the rapist loves them. They're raped because someone raped them.
She learns that someone's sexual history is no one else's business and whore is a world used to limit women's sexual freedom.
She's 23 and shes doing so much better and even though she knows equality hasn't been reached yet, shes okay. Shes fighting with a whole army of supporters and she knows she's not alone. She understands so much more than she did for so long. She knows her rights even if everyone else doesn't and she knows she's going to be okay.