Here is a blog entry I wrote about a time when I was street harassed:
I write to you tonight as a VERY PISSED OFF WOMAN. I’ll just go ahead and tell the story before I start ranting.
So…Every Thursday I attend meetings for a university organization called PAGE- People Acting for Gender Equality. Basically, we are one of many student organizations on the Ohio University campus fighting for open-mindedness and equality when it comes to all genders, sexual preferences, body types, yada yada yada all that good stuff. Anywayyyyysss, as I walked out of my building I noticed a group of boys (yes, I’ll call them boys, not men) drinking on a balcony above me. One noticed my t-shirt and yelled, “Hey, red shirt,” and mumbled some other comment that I ignored. I kept walking, writing him off as just another guy trying to get a girl’s attention. I was wrong.
He followed his little comment with, “Let me lick that pussy!”
UMMMMMMM, many of you probably don’t know me that well, but if you do you can probably guess that I didn’t let him get away with that. I am so tired of just walking away from comments like this, and I know other girls are too. Too often we just let it slide, but if we ever expect to make this world at least a little better we have to put people like this in their places. Needless to say, I turned around and gave him quite a large piece of my mind.
I started off pretty calmly and said, “I don’t know who just said that, but you should rethink ever saying that to another woman again, especially not as she’s walking down the street.”
They hated it. There were about five guys on the balcony, and not only did they deny saying it but also got completely defensive. They started with the excuses and saying how I’m just mad because I’ve “never gotten laid.”
They also seemed to think the words “bitch” and “dyke” offend me; little did they know that those words only empowered me further. I’m proud that I can be a bitch because that just means that I stand up for myself. If being a bitch means that I’m not a pushover then so be it. And who gives a SHIT if a girl is a dike. MORE POWER TO YOU. GIRLS ARE BEAUTIFUL, AND SEX IS GREAT! I hate closed-minded people more than I hate salmon patties, and that’s a lot– ask my mom.
I went on with many more comments; you can probably imagine them, so I won’t go on and on about it. But this is just one example of the millions of idiotic statements that are made every day.
PLEASE help put a stop to it. If you hear anyone making comments like this, tell them they’re wrong. I’m pretty surprised that not even one of the guys on the balcony stopped the other ones. They all thought it was acceptable to go on screaming at me. It’s one thing to make a joke. It’s one thing to use the word “bitch” or others like it; I do it all the time. But that guy had absolutely no right to say that to me.
You can preach free speech all you want, but when he opened his mouth he infringed on MY rights– my right not to be sexually harassed by some drunk dumbass.
Those guys were just pissed that I stood up to them. Instead of giggling and smiling and taking it as flirting, I said exactly what they would say if a gay guy said to them, “Let me suck that dick!”
It’s unwanted attention and a ridiculously disrespectful comment.
“A woman should be proud to declare she is a Bitch, because Bitch is Beautiful. It should be an act of affirmation by self and not negation by others…If taken seriously, Bitch is a threat to the social structures which enslave women and the social values which justify keeping them in their place. She is living testimony that woman’s oppression does not have to be, and as such raises doubts about the validity of the whole social system.” – Joreen (Jo Freeman), The BITCH Manifesto
– Taylr U
Location: Outside of my apartment on a college campus, Ohio
