Say, you know what really cramps my style? When boys and men think your body is public property that they can comment on, touch, or virtually x-ray a la TSA (God bless ‘em). While some women might like the attention as a sort of affirmation of their attractiveness, I think that it’s rude, obnoxious, and a painfully obvious sexist act and that the aforementioned women probably have daddy issues (woah, rude! Sorry, I had kind of a crappy day and am probably going to be cranky for the remainder of this post). But seriously, I really didn’t foresee Williamsburg, what with its colonial reenactments and booming elderly community, as a place where I would feel violated or generally skeeved out (is that a word? It is now, I guess). It has ranged from the run-of-the-mill cat-call yelled so thoughtfully from a moving vehicle to pretty violent and derogatory snippets drunkenly directed at my gaggle of girls (yeah, I travel in a gaggle).
One of the cruelest and oddly specific cat-calls that I have ever heard of was directed toward my beautiful, and I’m just going to say it, sexy friend who was feeling great about her new, short, form-fitting dress that looked awesome on her. Just as she was strolling down the street, holding her head high, and minding her business, some delinquent piece of excrement yelled out from his car “I’d f*** you if your weren’t a Ginger”. Pleasant, huh? Now, what I want to know is what in the hell boys are thinking when things like this make their way out of the slimy inner workings of their pre-pubescent brain and into the functioning world. Like honestly, WHAT THE HELL. Why would someone willingly shoot down another person, in the middle of the day, for no good reason? It’s overtly malicious and evil, so why does almost every guy do it? What in our society has inspired boys and men to treat us, fellow human beings with one small and awesome difference, like a walking billboard? They pretty clearly don’t acknowledge that we have feelings and I think it’s because they’ve been taught to look at women in the schema that we are objects that exist solely for them to look at, sleep with, comment on, and basically do whatever with. Here’s the thing, I’m not any of those things. I’m a person and I don’t want to feel like crap. Which is why I encourage girls to SAY ANYTHING in response to these things. Mostly girls just yell back expletives (I won’t lie to you, that’s the only thing I do in these cases), but for those who struggle with vulgarity, I encourage you to just say ANYTHING. For example, in response to the above statement, you could simply say: “Your mom didn’t seem to mind.” Throwing in someone’s “mom” is a classic component to the comeback formula.
As I said before, harassment can go from malicious to straight up violent. On my birthday this year, I got out of a car and snickered at a group of kids drinking in the parking lot. I’m sorry, that’s like the lamest thing since one hour parking. Are we in middle school? We are in fact not, so it sucks to suck for those guys. ANYWAY after I snickered at them (which, ok I was being snobby but that’s no excuse for what they said) one of the guys said “You can ride my [insert vulgar term for male anatomy], [insert the word meaning “female dog”]”. Gentlemen of the century, they were. I’m pretty damn sure I did not deserve that in the least and I’m pretty sure that the comment insinuated violence towards me in one way or another. I was so upset and distraught, but just kept on walking. My boyfriend didn’t notice so I didn’t say anything for about, oh, two seconds, until I drunkenly accused him of not having my back (I’m 21, I can relay drunk stories now). The second I did this, however, I realized, it’s not a man’s job to keep saving us. We need to stand up for ourselves and show the other sex that we refuse to be treated as inferior via their stupid comments and gestures. Only then will we be able to have a generation of men who view us as human rather than object.
I’m going to go play “I Am Woman” to myself now and paint my nails. See ya!