Instead, just this:
I originally wrote a list of incidents in the last few weeks, stories that you will have heard if you know me well. I deleted it because I don’t think I should have to relive every story for men to believe me. Because I’m a woman I’m expected to break myself open to help them understand, whether that’s good for me or not, whether they care or not.
How willfully stupid are you and how many times do we need to tell you?
I’m bored. I’m bored of being harassed, but I’m more bored of sharing these stories and having my female friends sympathise and talk about what ‘works’ to get rid of these men and what doesn’t, whilst my male friends seem surprised. Every. Single. Time. I’m bored of having to tell them only to feel like I might as well be talking to myself. You know these men. You have to. The world is not that big and these are your friends or your brothers or your cousins. It is your responsibility and not mine.
If I were to ‘be more careful’ at this stage I would have to conclude that the only effective precaution would be to never go outside, and I’m certainly not harassing myself, so who is to blame?
Harassment is bad, and it’s worse and more dangerous for women who do not have the privileges that I have. Men should be embarrassed of their gender and men should do something about it, because you have the ultimate privilege of being considered an actual person. Men do not harass me because they want to hit on me and they don’t know how. Men harass me the same way a child might run into a flock of birds; because they can, because they think it's funny and because they don’t humanise the thing they’re bothering because they don’t think birds have emotions or humanity in the same way people do.
And maybe you don’t yell at women on the street. Congrats. But maybe you do talk shit about women and call them ‘crazy’, maybe you believe women owe you their good behaviour, because they’re there just to please you, right? Women can only exist in relation to men so if you disapprove and say ‘I hate it when girls…’ then guess what, you’re still to blame. Every time you say something like that, you say that I can only be whatever you say I am, and therefore, I am only worthy of the treatment you think I deserve. If I am your friend or your sister or your daughter I am still a woman, and when you say ‘women’ you are talking about me. Those men on the street don’t care that you’ve deemed me ‘worthy’ of respecting, they just hear ‘women’ this and ‘women’ that.
The best way I ever heard it described was this -
‘every time you call a woman a slut, you make it unsafe for your friends and sisters and daughters and mothers to be outside’.
At this point I’d rather men just said ‘I’m sorry I know you’re being harassed and I probably do contribute to it somehow, but you know what? I just don’t care enough to say or do anything about it.’
And no, I’m not more exasperated or emotional than any other woman when it comes to this issue, I just have a blog and I won’t be quiet.
Finally, a little disclaimer: love and so much support to women who shared their experiences under the #metoo hashtag and I hope women who feel comfortable doing so continue to share their experiences. I will continue to support women, and all marginalised groups as much as I possibly can but I will not do any more emotional labour in which I am expected to explain to men who evidently could not give a shit, the ways in which misogyny impacts on my life. I will simply not endure those relationships, because I don’t think that on top of everything else, I should have to grin and bear discussing my actions and feelings about the men who harass me rather than say, what actions men could take to make it stop happening.
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Here are some other things I've written this week:
The Financial Diet What Happened When My Job Didn't Exist
Left Foot Forward Self-Employment and Worker's Rights
xx
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