I was recently in Nashville for the weekend with my mother. On our last day, shortly before we had to catch the last bus out of downtown before heading to the airport, I decided to run into one of the bars to buy a souvenir t-shirt. It was close to 90 degrees that day with full sun, so I chose to wear a shorter romper that I knew would keep me cool, and also that I felt comfortable and confident in.
When I walked into the bar, the middle-aged man who was playing on stage with his band stopped in the middle of the song to call out to me on the microphone in front of a fair-sized crowd. He leered and made demeaning and insulting comments to me about my appearance over the microphone, and then proceeded to announce to his audience that, since I wasn’t engaging with him, that I had “no personality,” which earned him some big laughs from the crowd. I turned around and left the bar, prompting him to again interrupt his set to harass me as I walked out of the door.
Needless to say, I was completely humiliated and enraged that he, and the rest of the crowd, saw humor in his unwarranted and hurtful comments. I find myself even more disgusted with the fact that we still live in a society where this is deemed acceptable behavior, so long as it’s in the name of humor.
Curiosity struck me later that night, and so I typed his name in on Google and to my surprise, found that he has not one, but two daughters who appear to be close to my age. This, the fact that this man who takes such pride in his misogynistic comments has two daughters of his own, is what I find to be the most appalling aspect to this story.
It’s unbelievably frustrating to me, who has been raised by strong women and men to have a strong sense of self and to treat others with compassion and empathy, to have found myself in this situation where I still feel powerless and violated. I’ve tried to consider the reason why my harasser, a relatively public figure, would choose to publicly humiliate and degrade me, but I can’t find any reason that would even remotely explain his behavior.
I’ve considered reaching out to him via social media, since I left in such a whirlwind before I could figure out something to say, but I haven’t been able to convince myself to do it. I’m hoping that it may give me closure, but I don’t want to risk the potential backlash if he doesn’t understand my complaint. Is there any advice someone may have for dealing with this situation?
– KG
Location: Broadway, Downtown Nashville, TN
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Katy says
I am so sorry you went through this. It’s my experience that people like that do not change their behavior. He seems cruel, almost sociopathic to me. He so badly wanted your attention that he went to pathetic lengths to get it. What a horrible, misogynistic person. Sociopaths don’t change their behavior and they take pleasure in putting others down. That’s why we often can’t find rhyme or reason in their behavior. I would advise that if you call him out on social media, you don’t present it as, “Give me validation that what you did was wrong,” but rather, “I am presenting you the consequences of what you did wrong.” You don’t even have to reveal your identity if you don’t wish to, in order to do this. Holding these people accountable and finding ways to speak your truth respectfully, but firmly, as you did here, without backing down, is, from my life experience, a better tactic to use with bullies. But you can also choose not to give any more time or energy to this person as well. Do what you feel is most empowering and safe for you to do. Hope this works out for you and many hugs!!
Brandi says
Question: for you, what is the intent of reaching out to this man? You mentioned that could potentially get you closure – would you get closure only if he responded and apologized? What if he did not respond? Or responded negatively? It could be really good to get the topic off your chest by writing to him and asking a poignant question. But it also may be difficult to conduct an effective communication with someone who is obviously ignorant of his impact to others in 160 characters.
I really appreciated you sharing your experience. I also just experience an incident of harassment (though not publicly) and even sharing my experience with some friends and family and taking a look at all of the different behaviors I could take in the future has helped me to process the incident. Maybe this could be another approach to finding closure. In any case, I’m not averse to some not-so-nice words carefully placed on his website, but then, I think they call that trolling, another form of harassment.
Food for thought. Thank you for your courage.