Rude Men and Rape Culture

I don’t usually post one right after the other but I’ve had two experiences in the last 24 hours that are challenging my ability to be a nice person right now.

Looking people in the eyes is something that I have been taught.  My parents taught me to look at others when I was talking to them.  A teacher taught me about the importance of body language and meeting someone’s eye when listening.  I tend to look at other people and try to make eye contact even they are just passing by me on the street.  Then I smile.  That’s right, I’m that person.  The one who makes other people feel super awkward because, stop everything, I tried to make a human connection.  You never know, that other person may need a smile that day, or someone to talk to.  I try to never be too busy that I can’t stop and talk to a stranger, or (attempt to) give them directions, or just let them know they aren’t alone.  I’ve had many great conversations through this eye contact making thing.  Granted I have been sucked into some awkward ones, and those people selling things on the street usually try and talk to me.  But hey, I figure they deal with the cold shoulder all day, I might as well smile while I say no thank you.

Today on my way to work I stopped at a coffee shop.  While waiting for my drink I look up and see someone walking towards me.  We meet eyes, I smile, he raises one eye brow, cocks his head, and body checks me.  Not the type of body check you’d see in hockey but the kind where a man slowly lets his eyes roam down a woman’s body and then back up again (I’m sure this happens to men as well but we’re talking about me right now).  Not only did I feel super violated, I felt dismissed and like I was “less than.”  All I was trying to do was be nice and this man, a complete stranger, managed to make me feel super shitty about myself.  Thanks a lot asshole.

Experience number 2 happened last night.  I get off work at midnight on Saturdays and since I refuse to pay $20+ for parking I take the bus.  At night I will still look people in the eyes but the reasoning changes a little.  I am letting that person know that I am aware of my surroundings, I see them, and I will remember them.  Yay for rape culture at its finest.  So, I am waiting for the bus and I see someone start to walk by out of the corner of my eye.  I look up, we make eye contact, he stops and proceeds to call me a mother-fucking-fat-ass-bitch.  He keeps walking then changes his mind and turns back around.  He got right up in my face and called me a bitch one more time before leaving.  I thought he was going to spit on me for a second.

Even though the first guy was definitely a jerk it is the second one I’d like to talk about.  I work with women who are often experiencing some kind of (untreated) mental illness.  I am threatened on a nearly daily basis.  I’ve been threatened with a gun, a knife, an axe, and a 2×4.  A man broke his hand on the door next to me when I wouldn’t let him in the building.  I’ve been stalked and the police had to escort me to my car once because someone was waiting around the corner with a baseball bat for me to get off work.  People are up in my face, yelling at me every day I go to work, calling me names that are way worse than this guy did.  And yet, this one man managed to rattle me more than almost all of these other experiences.

I think first and foremost it was because it was out of context for me.  I deal with crazy all day at work I just wasn’t prepared for it outside of work.  Secondly I was alone at the bus stop.  There was no one else in sight and I had no idea when the bus was coming.  I remember thinking if I scream would anyone hear me, if I hit this guy and run could I make it, and if I say/yell anything back would it make it better…or worse?

This is exactly what rape culture does.  It makes women afraid to go out at night and to be alone.  I can talk against it all I want but that doesn’t mean I am not a victim of it.  I can hate the fact that women, that I, have been taught to be afraid of men.  I can hate the fact that people are becoming desensitized to more and more amounts of violence, and that jokes about rape and the degradation of women are not taken seriously.  I can be against all of this but it does not change the fact that I take off my jewelry and change my clothes when I leave work late at night.  It does not change the fact that I check my back seat before I get into my car, or that I choose to park under lights and away from other cars.  These are not things that I was explicitly told to do by someone else.  These are things I learned, almost instinctively, by watching the culture around me.  I do almost everything to avoid drawing attention to myself at night.  Everything except look at people.  There was nothing I was doing to draw this mans attention to me.

I refuse to stop looking people in the eyes when I walk around and though I don’t really feel like being a nice person right now I refuse stop doing that as well.  So take that random rude men on the street!  I refuse to let you change me, though I may call you out a couple times before the day is done…

I’d like to end with this video.  Think about it.

Update:  I’ve been trying to remember where I first saw this video so that I could give the person credit.  It was on One Woman, “I am tired of the silence.”  Thanks Aimee!