Dear Men,
As a straight, single woman, I love you guys. I love your hairiness. I love when you do rugged and manly things outdoors like setting stuff on fire. I love how stoic you are, yet still get choked up when you watch the episode of Futurama about Fry’s dog. Unfortunately, sometimes I get the feeling that you don’t love me—and other women, for that matter—back. I’m talking about street harassment: whistles, catcalls, horn honks, etc. Pretty much all those little things guys tend to do that you think are complimentary but are actually demeaning and frightening.
I can almost hear your arguments of rebuttal from here. Believe me, I’ve heard many of them before: Women secretly like it… It’s showing appreciation… I’m just being nice… Women are just too stuck up… I don’t mind when women objectify me…
Gentlemen, as I said before, I like you. A lot. I’m sure there is one of you out there I’ll meet someday that I will love even. So I’m going to let you in on a secret—a secret, insider, girls-only secret. When you do those things, they do not make me feel attractive. They do not make me feel like I would be safe in your muscular embrace. They do not make me swoon in awe of your sexual prowess.
They do make me feel that you might be the type of person who would attack me and rape me, that you are a predator and I am your prey. They make me feel like I should cross the street with my head turned away, eyes cast down in shame for daring to wear a skirt or dress or running shorts. They make me see you as the type of goon Batman pulverizes without breaking a sweat. They make me feel sick inside. I’m pretty sure most women feel the same way (though truthfully I can speak only for myself). If you care that much about us, then you should respect us enough to stop. If you continue to harass women on the street, then you don’t really care about us; you care about your own selfish personal gratification.
I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that we are, for the most part, all adults here. What separates men and women from boys and girls isn’t the number of years they have been alive or their ability to grow body hair, it’s their capacity to understand and respect each other. Children are selfish because that is the only way they know how to be. Their scope of life is limited. Adults, however, have history. We have baggage we carry with us whether we realize it or not. All this baggage—the good and the bad—helps us to be unselfish and to see things from others’ perspectives. A lack of mutual respect results in grown-up children: adults who still think only of their own immediate wants and desires. When men fail to see things from women’s perspective, fail to listen to us, you are not behaving like men. You are behaving like boys.
This brings me to my final point: how can men possibly understand women? How can you possibly understand that we are not being too stuck up or overly sensitive when we object to street harassment? Frankly, there is a very simple answer. Allow me to share this story as an explanation:
It has become something of a tradition among my high school friends and me to gather periodically for movie marathons. One of our most recent marathons was the Alien franchise. I was particularly excited about this, as I had never seen any of these films before. (As a side note, my final verdict: Alien and Aliens are perfectly awesome, three and four are negligible, Prometheus had its flaws but is overall pretty good.) During the course of watching the first movie, my friends and I (three men, three women including me) got to talking about its underlying themes of rape and male violation. Paul, one of the friends who hosts these get-togethers and who writes a movie review blog (Man of Constant Hatred), pointed out that the whole concept of the face-huggers—especially in the original when they first attack John Hurt’s character—illustrates sexual violation of men. Think about it: the face-hugger surprises Hurt and latches itself over his face, specifically over his mouth. It refuses to release him until after it has had its way with him, laying its eggs inside him—in other words, raping him. This rape ultimately results in Hurt’s death.
Gentlemen, how do you feel when you watch this movie? Uncomfortable? Squicky? What does make you feel that way? I don’t know; I’m a woman. I’m just trying to help you all put yourselves in our place.
I am not going to tell you that you need to get in touch with your feminine side or express your feelings more or anything like that. All I can do is present my feelings and opinions on the matter. It’s up to you to respect them, hopefully after taking a while to consider what real respect looks like.
Sincerely,
Emily C. Williams
Emily C. Williams is a middle-school English teacher and a writer of novels. She holds degrees from the University of Mary Washington and the College of William and Mary. She currently lives in Richmond, Virginia.
