Street harassment
Aug. 23rd, 2016 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merhawkToday while taking my walk, I ended up in an intersection with a male waiting for the light to change. I was talking with a friend on the phone, and noticed that he had angled himself to look me over like a piece of meat.
Hawk: crosses arms across chest and glares, while moving away from him.
Pervert: continues to obviously stare at my chest.
Hawk (talking on phone loudly): There's a pervert here looking me over. He's being incredibly skeezy staring me up and down.
Pervert: Moves behind pillar to make it look as if he's not looking me up and down.
Hawk (talking on phone loudly): No, he just moved behind the pillar thinking that makes him less of a slime ball. He's still starting at my T&A
Pervert: checks me out one last time and then slinks farther behind pillar so he can't actually see me.
My friend thought I should be flattered that he finds me good looking (guess I've lost enough weight, right!) but it's just sleazy and lewd. If it hadn't been a busy street corner, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd tried to put hands on me.
It is NOT a compliment when you're just walking on the street and get looked up and down and all around. This is not the first time it's happened to me, and unfortunately it's not going to be the last. Hopefully, by calling him out loudly and publicly, he'll think twice about his actions. Because, no matter what anyone says, it's not my responsibility to dress in a burqa to stop the male gaze. I shouldn't have to police my clothes to make sure that I'm not harassed. Men who are doing it (and women too - I've been sexually assaulted by a woman before at a friend's party) need to own their own behavior and not harass women. This isn't a woman problem, this is a harasser problem.
So let's start letting them know even more that their behavior is unacceptable. They need to be called out. And usually by someone who is like them; I'm just the "other". I'm the bitch that doesn't know how to take a compliment. I'm the frigid slut because I don't want to have their attention. I'm whatever excuse they want to make, to make it all about me not being willing to have their gaze/hands all over me. What if this had been a woman a little less sure of herself? Or too young to know how to handle it? I have nieces at the age that people like this start harassing. I don't want them to have to go through what I've had to. I don't want them to have to tell their friends "Oh, it wasn't so bad. It wasn't rape at least." [Yes, that's what I said to my friend on the phone when she was horrified that it had happened.] I want them to have the freedom to be able to not understand how it happens.
Hawk: crosses arms across chest and glares, while moving away from him.
Pervert: continues to obviously stare at my chest.
Hawk (talking on phone loudly): There's a pervert here looking me over. He's being incredibly skeezy staring me up and down.
Pervert: Moves behind pillar to make it look as if he's not looking me up and down.
Hawk (talking on phone loudly): No, he just moved behind the pillar thinking that makes him less of a slime ball. He's still starting at my T&A
Pervert: checks me out one last time and then slinks farther behind pillar so he can't actually see me.
My friend thought I should be flattered that he finds me good looking (guess I've lost enough weight, right!) but it's just sleazy and lewd. If it hadn't been a busy street corner, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd tried to put hands on me.
It is NOT a compliment when you're just walking on the street and get looked up and down and all around. This is not the first time it's happened to me, and unfortunately it's not going to be the last. Hopefully, by calling him out loudly and publicly, he'll think twice about his actions. Because, no matter what anyone says, it's not my responsibility to dress in a burqa to stop the male gaze. I shouldn't have to police my clothes to make sure that I'm not harassed. Men who are doing it (and women too - I've been sexually assaulted by a woman before at a friend's party) need to own their own behavior and not harass women. This isn't a woman problem, this is a harasser problem.
So let's start letting them know even more that their behavior is unacceptable. They need to be called out. And usually by someone who is like them; I'm just the "other". I'm the bitch that doesn't know how to take a compliment. I'm the frigid slut because I don't want to have their attention. I'm whatever excuse they want to make, to make it all about me not being willing to have their gaze/hands all over me. What if this had been a woman a little less sure of herself? Or too young to know how to handle it? I have nieces at the age that people like this start harassing. I don't want them to have to go through what I've had to. I don't want them to have to tell their friends "Oh, it wasn't so bad. It wasn't rape at least." [Yes, that's what I said to my friend on the phone when she was horrified that it had happened.] I want them to have the freedom to be able to not understand how it happens.