Dear: Men

I had a bad experience awhile back.

I drove on a bad street in a bad neighborhood. Normally, I don’t have any trouble driving down this street, but this day – this day about 3pm – things were different.

I drove up to find a group of four or five 30-something men pushing each other around. Maybe they were fighting, maybe they were just roughhousing, I don’t know.

But, as a woman, your instincts start firing off immediately in your head: get out of this situation immediately.

Since I couldn’t turn around, I continued on.

As I got closer, the group of men opened up their circle only far enough to let me barely pass through. I went 5mph past them as I received a showering of “heyyyy girl”‘s from men banging on my car, a foot from my windows.

I was in a car, yes, but I was still terrified. I can’t describe exactly how much, but this excerpt from an amazing post does a better job:

When women get harassed on the street, or at a bar, or on their walk home from work, do you know what we think? We wonder, am I going to get out of this safely? Am I going to walk away from this? Where are my keys if I need to stab someone in the eye? Are there people on the street? Will they hear me? Which way will I run? Solar Plexus, Instep, Nose, Groin.

All I could think was…who will I hit first? Who will I run over? What will I do if one of them pulls a knife? Or a gun?

I realize I’m overreacting when I think like that; but as a woman, we all think like that. Also, I’m not overreacting, because these situations turn out badly all. the. time.

And you know what? I hated them for it. I thought of this article, by this brilliant woman – Emily Heist Moss, because she said it best:

Does it disturb you that we think like this? That we have to think like this?

Do men know we think like this? Do you know that we have this thought process?

That we plan 10 steps in advance, expecting the worst? That we go through a play-by-play in my head to prepare ourselves?

This may not seem like a big deal. It may seem like women take things too far, but the reality is: it’d be cool to flip the switch on you.

Where’s my magic button, the switch I can flip to show men like you what it feels like on the other side of your “jokes” and “compliments”? Maybe the first time someone comments on your ass in public you’ll take it as a compliment, but what about the next 12 times? How will you like having a private conversation interrupted so that some dude can get in a lame sexual pun or a rude gesture to impress his friends? What about your personal space? How do you like sharing that with aggressive strangers?

Maybe I’ll start making a sexual mockery of men in public, just to prove a point.

Maybe I’ll grab a guy by the ass and say, “what are you up to tonight?,” sneering like I mean it in a demeaning way.

I’m joking, but it’s what we deal with on a daily basis. And what it boils down to? It’s demeaning, emotionally (and often physically) abusive, and wrong.

So, my dearest menfolk, I’ll keep it simple: learn how to be a gentleman.