This is a supplemental blog post for the video below. If you haven’t seen it, please watch it first as many of the things I say in this blog will directly relate to remarks made in said video. Also, I don’t want to summarize the incident again.
Long story short, a guy was kind of creepy to me on the subway and since then I’ve been thinking a lot about how this is going to change my future behavior. Mostly, I’ve been really angry.
First, like I said in the video above, I’m angry because what finally got the guy to leave me alone was my affirmation of having a boyfriend. If my body language is clearly “don’t talk to me” and I’ve already rejected your request for my phone number THREE TIMES, leave me alone. My having a boyfriend has no bearing on the fact that I don’t want anything to do with you. I can understand wanting some sort of affirmation that I’m disinterested because of other variables, not because you’re unattractive or whatever, but it’s incredibly insulting that my agency in this situation means nothing to you until I mention being “taken.”
Second, I’m angry because now I don’t want to wear my favorite dress around because I look good when I wear it and apparently me not looking like a just-finished-my-shift mess is an invitation to be creepy. I’m angry that my clothing options are limited because other people suck. I’m not wearing the dress so that other people think I look beautiful. I’m wearing the dress because it’s comfortable and I feel good when I wear it. But now I only feel comfortable wearing it if I’m with another person the entire time it’s on, so that I have someone to engage in conversation when creepy wandering eyes fall in my direction.
Third, I’m angry because I have to invent an identity for myself in order to not feel threatened by strangers. I’m angry that when someone tries to talk to me on the subway, even if they aren’t a danger to me, I have to pretend to be Sophie from Clinton Hill with the big, burly, Scottish boyfriend in order to feel safe.
But fourth, I’m angry because after all of that, I don’t feel like I overreacted at all. In fact, I wish I’d thought of more fictional details about myself at a quicker pace so that I didn’t have a big wiry ball of fear burning in my stomach the whole way home.
People will inevitably respond to my video with things like “not everyone is a threat” and “maybe he was just being friendly” and “you’re being too sensitive.” But those people would be wrong. Because as a female, alone in an area with no cell service late at night, literally every single person is a threat. Every two minutes, an American is sexually assaulted. 80% of these victims is under 30, and 9 out of 10 of these victims was female. My culture has raised me to understand that I am not safe any time I, as a young woman, go anywhere alone, because other people will want things from me and won’t care if I want to give those things away.
And I’m angry. I’m angry that because of my gender I have to carry mace around with me everywhere I go since people can’t be trusted. I’m even more angry that, when a man (yes, in my experience, it’s always a man) harasses me on the street or continually tries to talk to me despite my negative body language, I can’t tell him off because that will actually put me in more danger. Even refusing to give him my number -even a fake one- was a potentially hazardous move. The young women Elliot Rodgers slaughtered after a series of rejections by other women can attest to that. So yeah, I’m pissed.
Here’s a great article about how even small moments of street harassment can become potentially dangerous, and how saying “no” to someone’s advances is rarely the end of the conversation, and below is Laci Green’s video about Elliot Rodgers, which highlights the super fun threat of being murdered because you didn’t want to date someone. Please watch through to the end, the last half of the video is the most important, and most relevant to this discussion.
Finally, here’s a great comic that my old high school debate friend Arielle posted on Facebook right before I posted this blog. Original link.
