Posts tagged politics

erikamoen:

unwinona:

And then I debated whether or not to put it on Tumblr…but I decided it was important.  Because in my own way, I can (unfortunately) point out exactly what is wrong with men when they don’t realize how hard it is to be a woman.  How we do not have equal opportunities and freedoms in everyday life.  How most men, even good caring men, have no clue what we go through on a daily basis just trying to live our lives.

So here goes.

I often ride the Metro when I commute from North Hollywood to Long Beach in order to save money.  I bring a book, pointedly wear a ring on my ring finger to imply I’m married (I’m not) and keep to myself.  

Without fail, I am aggressively approached by men on at least half of these commutes.  The most common approach is to walk up to where I am sitting with body language that practically screams LEAVE ME ALONE and sit down next to me or as close to me as possible, when the train is not crowded and there are many empty rows.  Sometimes an overly friendly arm is draped over the railing behind me, or they attempt to lean in close to talk to me as if we are old friends.  Without fail, the man or boy in question will lean to close and ask me

What are you reading?

Is that a good book?

What’s that book about?

This serves the double purpose of getting my attention and trapping me in a conversation.  If I stop reading the book I enjoy to talk to you, random stranger, you hit on me or just stay way too close to me.  If I tell you to leave me alone, you get mad at me.  Because I somehow, as a woman, owe you conversation.

Tonight when I boarded the train in Long Beach at 10:30pm, it started up right away.  I was not on the train more than three minutes before three boys who looked eighteen sat in the row behind me and leaned over the seats into my personal space, close enough to breathe on me.  The one with his arm draped over onto the back of my seat asked me—surprise— “what are you reading?”  I went through my usual routine.  I told them loudly and firmly that I wanted to be left alone to read my book.  They got angry.  I was told “Why are you going to be like that?  I just wanted to talk!”  His friends start laughing at me and they don’t move, telling me come on! and why are you gonna be like that? until I tell them to leave me the fuck alone, stand up, and move to the front of the car near the three other people on the train, a couple and a business man in a suit.  They spend the next two stops shouting at me from the back of the car, alternating between trying to sound flirtatious and making fun of me, shouting “I bet she’s reading Stephanie Meyer!  I bet she’s reading Twilight or some shit!  You reading Twilight or some shit?”

They exit the train at the next stop, and I’m relieved.  The train is going out of service at the next station, so we all exit to board a new train to Los Angeles.  As we board, the business man steps aside to let me go through the door first and asks me if those guys were bothering me.  I say yes, that it happens all the time, and he tells he’ll beat them up for me if they come back.  He is a nice person who talks to me like I’m a human being instead of a walking pair of tits, and I make a mental note:  This is how a real man talks to a woman on a train.

The business man and the couple exit our new Blue Line train an exit or so later, and I think my night is ending on a good note.  A seemingly normal man enters the train with his bicycle.  At this point I am three rows from the front of the car, another man was sitting near the back of the car, and the rest of the car is empty.  Bicycle Man walks halfway down the row, and settles into the seat directly opposite me.  Perfect, I think.  Twice in one night.

It’s not the first time I’ve been bothered multiple times.  As such, I’m still amped from the teenagers on the first train.  So when this man leans across the aisle into my personal space and asks me, yes, what are you reading, I assertively but calmly tell him to please leave me alone, I am reading.  The man stands up, moving to the front and muttering angrily over his shoulder that it isn’t his fault I’m pretty.

Yes.  Exactly that.  I am the bad person in this situation because somehow this is all my fault.  I started this by being attractive.  I am making a mental note to bitch about this to my friends later.  I go so far as to write it down so I know I’m remembering it properly.  

It is at this exact moment I realize Bicycle Man is not taking it well.  The seemingly annoying but normal man a moment before is now talking to himself, becoming agitated.  In my years of being bothered by total strangers, I have learned how to hold a book and seem to be reading while taking in everything around me.  He is glaring at me, and says out loud in an angry baby talk voice “PLEASELEAVEMEALONEI’MREADING.  PLEASE LEAVE ME ALOOOONE.”

Then he’s up out of his seat and things go from bad to worse.  He begins pacing back and forth in front of his bike, alternating between screaming something about his mother being dead and calling me a slut, a hoe, a bitch.  I am frozen in place.  There is one other person in the car, and I’m not sure if trying to change seats will draw more attention to me or less. I trust my instincts and show no fear, doing my best to appear to be calmly reading my book, never once looking up to acknowledge the abuse he’s hurling at me.  There are four stops left until we reach the main downtown station where there are lights and security officers.  Those four stops are virtually abandoned, and I have no guarantee that leaving to wait for another train won’t motivate him to leave the train as well, leaving us potentially alone at a metro station platform just outside of Compton.  I’m frozen in place, trying to plan what I’m going to do if he decides to take all this rage directly to me.  I’m ready to kick him, scream, make enough noise that he panics and flees.  

At this point he’s punching the walls and doors of the train, screaming at me.  He stares me full in the face and screams

SUCK MY DICK, BITCH

YOU BITCH

YOU STUPID BITCH

YOU GODDAMN HO

IF I HAD A GUN I’D SHOOT YOU

I WOULD FUCKING KILL YOU BITCH

This went on for two stops.  No one came to see what was happening.  The man in the last row was as frozen as I was.  I’m not angry he didn’t come to my defense.  He was smaller, older, and frailer-looking than I was.  Again, I was worried if I got up, I would be turning my back on him to walk down the aisle.  In the state he was in, I had no guarantee it wouldn’t get physical, and I had more physical strength with my back to the window and feet in kicking position where I was.  If he had chosen to assault me, I would only be making it easier for him by standing up and putting myself directly in his path.  On and on, over and over, he screamed at me, screamed at his dead mother, screamed at me again.

The moment we reached the downtown station, I was out the door and down the stairs.  I still had to catch a connecting train to North Hollywood, and made sure there was no sign of Bicycle Man before I entered the car.  That’s when I finally starting shaking, and almost threw up.  By the time I exited the Red Line and reached my car I could barely breathe and my heart was pounding out of my chest.  Even now, in my own home, my hands are still shaking and for some reason the stress has made my back muscles feel cold and numb.  From all the tension, I can only assume.  I can’t eat anything, I still feel like I’m going to vomit, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t cried so much, so hard I still have the headache.

So when people (men) want to talk about “legitimate” forms of assault, tell girls they should be nice to strangers and give men the benefit of a doubt, tell them to consider it a compliment, tell them to ignore the bad behavior of men, I want them to be forced to feel, for even one minute, what it feels like to have so much verbal hatred and physical intimidation thrown at them for nothing more than being female and not wanting to share.  

I just wanted to read my book.

It’s not my fault I’m pretty.

I’ve regularly had very similar experiences to this as well.

To the manbabies who baaaaaw at me about how it hurts their feefees when I write about being terrified when unknown men approach me in public, it is because of experiences like this. I have no way of knowing which men are going to simply call me a bitch and which will escalate further (Or, even more rarely, the ones who will leave me alone without pushing it when I don’t respond. They are the rarest of all). Maybe the interrupting man is harmless, or maybe he’s like the pieces of shit above, it’s impossible to tell by looking. All I have to go on is the fact that both the harmless men and the pieces of shit men feel entitled to invade my space and interrupt me from my book or sketchbook, without having made even passing eye contact with me, simply because they have decided I should be paying attention to them.

All I can do is keep my eyes down, not respond, and get away as soon as I safely can.

It’s not a matter of me being rude, it’s a matter of protecting myself based off of my  experiences.

Does that make you mad that I’m not being fair? Fuck off. Walk a mile in my shoes.

Reading this story made me well up with tears and the anxiety is caught in my throat.  But even though I know I’ve had it easy with most of the places I’ve lived and the situations I’ve been in, I’ve still had my share of this sort of treatment.

One night I was walking into my apartment building after working late.  I didn’t live in the best of areas - there’s a club down the street, a big drug deal spot around the corner, not many street lights.  It was fall, and I had long pants and a sweatshirt on, huddled up and walking quickly to get inside.  As I reached the speed bump right before the turn to the building entrance, a car pulled up.  Much too slowly for even the speed bump.  Something is wrong.  I pulled out my cell and pulled up the dialer, ready to call 911.  And then the car window rolled down, and the man in the car stuck his head toward the window.  I silently hoped he was just asking for directions.  “Hey baby, what’s good?”  In shock I almost stopped walking.  I was glad I was on his passenger side, where he couldn’t reach me.

I told him to go away, that I would call the cops.  “I’m not doing anything wrong” he snapped, starting to pull away.  He turned around in the parking lot and came back toward me.  He was on my side of the street now.  I’m calling the cops, I told him.  “Good fucking luck bitch.”  He screeched off to the entrance of the parking lot, then killed his car so the lights on his license plate turned off.  I booked it into the building at that point, afraid he’d turn around again.  My hands were shaking as I tried to unlock the security door, and once I was inside I didn’t feel any safer.  I practically ran to the elevator, down my hall, and to my apartment.

I didn’t sleep that night, or the next.  I held it together until I lay down in bed for the night, and then I just cried.  I was nauseous with anxiety for days.  I was working the same late night schedule the next night.  Would he come back?  Maybe I could switch shifts.  Maybe my boyfriend could meet me out front when I got home.  Maybe I should wear a heavier jacket, or carry a knife.

I’d never been in a situation like that before, and it scared the hell out of me.  I couldn’t believe I was thinking about changing my whole work schedule, or the way I dressed.  I hadn’t done anything wrong.  But I would do anything for something like that to never happen again.

I can’t imagine being in a situation like that on a regular basis.  Some days I still can’t believe it happened to me that once.  But I’m definitely more skeptical of the men I walk by, even during the day.  It’s been almost year since that happened and I still can feel the anxiety.  Then I hear politicians talk about “legitimate” assault and rape.  If I had been pulled into that man’s car, or assaulted, or raped, would they say it was my fault?  She shouldn’t have been walking alone.  She shouldn’t have worked so late.  She should have just ignored the man and went inside.

I can’t even put into words how much that angers and scares me.