This morning I stopped by the post office to mail a number of post cards to California state legislators for a nonprofit I volunteer with. As I was putting the stamps on the post cards (there were a lot of them, so I was standing at the counter for a while), a man brushed up against me and his hand rubbed against my ass.
At first I shrugged it off because I figured he was just trying to squeeze by me, but when I turned around I realized there was a good 4 feet of space between the counter where I was standing and the wall behind it that he could have easily walked through… so now I’m pretty positive he did it on purpose.
I was angry, but also frustrated that the way he did it was sneaky enough to make me doubt myself and hesitate, so he was gone before I was able to confront him.
– Sara
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
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LS says
Hi Sara, I was very touched by your post and sorry that happened to you. As a woman, I can relate. It speaks to the indignities women all over the world have to face every day-having men touch our bodies like they own them, and like they are entitled to touch them whenever they feel like it. On top of it, they are so cowardly, they don’t even give you a chance to respond to stand up for yourself.
To say they disgust me is an understatement. To call them animals is an insult to the animals who conduct themselves in more dignified ways than these thugs do. It’s all symptomatic of the chauvanistic, male-dominated world we live in where women are still seen as second-class citizens, there to service men whenever they demand it. I can barely drive anywhere without passing by some strip club. These are on main, well-traveled roads, not in some bad part of town. What message does that send? At some point, there has to be justice on a mass scale because it’s well overdue. Hold your head up high as woman of dignity.