By Britnae Purdy, SSH Correspondent
My boyfriend and I live near a great little college town. It’s not the party center of Virginia, but there are plenty of fun bars, unique restaurants, and quirky shops within walking distance, and one of our favorite things to do on free nights is to wander around, enjoying the warm weather and nightlife.
The last time we went out, I was feeling particularly hot – you know that feeling, when your hair is, surprisingly, just right, your outfit strikes that perfect balance, and you’ve applied your makeup without stabbing yourself in the eyeball with your mascara wand. We were going to a small show downtown, and I was happy.
As we walked, a pick-up truck pulled up beside us. A man (Boy? Guy? Dude? Man carries a connotation of respect of self and others that I typically don’t think applies in situations like this) leaned out and leered, “DAMN, girl!”
Let’s be clear here: I was feeling pretty DAMN girl! that night. My boyfriend probably agreed. Heck, in my mind everyone in town that night should have agreed. But hearing that call, in a stranger’s slightly slurring drawl, made me immediately want to go home, scrub clean, and burn my clothes.
As he drove away, my boyfriend muttered a curse, and feeling on edge already, I got angry. Why couldn’t you have said that to his face?! I thought. Throw a punch? Defend my honor (whatever that means)? Make him pay? And on that note, where were you the last time this happened to me? Why can’t you make it stop? I thought I was at least safe from getting harassed when I was with my boyfriend!
Hold up. Wait a second. What is it about street harassment that suddenly gives me princess syndrome?
As in, where is my knight in shining armor to rescue me?
No, I don’t want my boyfriend to start a fight with my harassers. I cannot react to one misplaced display of supposed hyper “masculinity” with another.
Nor am I asking my harassers to suddenly turn into the epitome of chivalry, lay down their coats so that I may walk over puddles and whatnot. But clearly something needs to change. Where can we start?
Before we had even left our apartment that night, I had brought up the problem of street harassment. I had said to my boyfriend, “I really want to wear my cute new heels. But I really don’t want to get yelled or honked at when we go out.”
He seemed very sad all of a sudden, and looked at me and said, “I really wish you didn’t have to deal with that.”
YES. That’s it. We don’t need princes. We don’t need every male to suddenly become feminist (though really, how great would that be?) What we need is for more and more men to realize, in similar moments of wrenching clarity, that their girlfriends, sisters, mothers, are facing sexually-based threats and harassment every single day, and that that simply should not happen.
For our part, women need to stop fooling themselves into thinking that street harassment, because it is so common, should be the norm, or that being sexually objectified by strangers is somehow a compliment. We need to insist on holding men to a higher standard, and we need men to rise to the occasion.
This is a united effort – no room for princesses here.
Britnae is a graduate student at George Mason University, in Virginia, where she is pursuing a Master of Arts in Global Affairs with a specialization in Security and Conflict Studies. She also writes for First Peoples Worldwide and you can read more of her writing on their blog and follow her on Twitter.
