Stay Ready

I don't know how much of this is because I'm filled with the spirit of Beyoncé, but I've been thinking some things lately.

You know that thing where some guy is giving you The Ick? You're minding your business, living your life and some guy leans out of his car window with just a "Hey baby!" Or even just a "Woo!" if he's feeling particularly uncreative (serves you right for walking down the street with dat ass when he dint have no time to prepare some of his better material). Or maybe you work in customer service and you get a slimeball who decides that every word you say is a double entendre ("Receipt with you or in the bag?" "Oh yeah, put it in my bag, huh huh huh!")

Or maybe you're wandering around Target thinking about all the cool pens you're about to buy, just shopping with your family, and some guy decides to follow you around. This is what happened to me last week.

So there I am, admiring the notebooks and thinking about where to start when I become aware of some guy who wandered into the same aisle. I didn't think anything of it at first, since people are allowed to wander freely throughout Target without some woman thinking they're following them. Also, I have that thing where it doesn't matter where I am or what aisle I'm in - it's always desert-empty when I walk up and then suddenly someone has to be exactly where I am, looking at exactly what I'm looking at. So I didn't pay it any attention, other than to think, "Man, it certainly always seems like people need to be all up in your perimeter when you shop, doesn't it?"

A minute later, I decided that I wanted to see what my sister was looking at, so I walked into the next aisle where she was. The guy who wandered into the aisle I had been in decided to follow me. This was unusual enough that I noticed, but didn't make eye contact because it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that he might need something in the stationery aisle. When I joined my sister, she and I talked about what we were looking for and other various sisterly things for a good five to ten minutes. I wandered a little up the aisle on my own for a moment and realized that the guy was still there - not looking at anything in particular, just hovering. 

I got mad. Before I could really get fired up to take action, my parents rolled up with their cart to see what we were doing. The four of us talked for a loud five minutes, and the guy stayed in the aisle, watching all of us. No one noticed except me. I decided to confirm that he was actually following me and walk into the original aisle I came from, while my family stayed in the second aisle. I also needed a minute to weigh my options.

Option A: Continue to pretend I don't notice while thinking up a dozen snappy comebacks to any sort of greasy talk that he might be gearing up for.
Option B: Continue to pretend I don't notice and stay close to my family with the hope that he'll just leave.
Option C: Confront him because I am sick of this bullshit and I am ALWAYS READY TO BOX.

He followed me back into the aisle. Guess which option I chose?
 
So this is like, a hardcore fact about me - I stay ready. One of the things about having issues with anxiety is that you're always prepared for the worst. And in the world we live in, the worst can sometimes mean getting violently attacked if you reject a man's attention (the best case scenario is that they utter a few choice words and leave you alone). 

I'm not saying I'd confront a group of street harassers in an isolated area (I talk big but I'm not crazy), but I felt confident enough in a Target store, with my family nearby, to bust out my best Minerva McGonagall and stare witheringly into this man's eyes for as long as it took him to get visibly uncomfortable and leave. I have confronted many a slimeball on many an occasion, and the thing that works best right off the bat is the Stare. They aren't, I guess, expecting you to confront them at all, and most of them turn into scared lil bitches as soon as you look them in the eye. My assumption is that they're just kind of counting on that polite nervous laughter that women are born knowing how to do, and any other reaction seems to throw them off. 

I wasn't always an Option C woman. I used to just play nice and be polite and think, "Well, you never know what might happen, best to stay safe, you could get hurt." I can't figure out when this changed, if it was an overnight thing or what, but all I know is that now, when I find myself in these types of situations, I am TOO FUCKING TIRED to be polite. I spent my entire life being worried and anxious about What Might Happen and just accepting that harassment was part of a woman's life, and it is EXHAUSTING. If I confront some man in a store and he gets violent, I am going to throw down right there and I don't care what happens. I truly, honestly feel that I'd rather go down fighting than be passive and allow this behaviour to continue. 

Of course, my family disagrees. My husband thinks that someone like me, with no formal fight training, is going to get hurt badly. My response is that when I play combat video games, I might not know how to take down my enemies in the smoothest and most efficient way, but I know how to hammer on those buttons wildly enough to get some good licks in. And sometimes, I win.

I think that people who say that I should be more careful or I might get really hurt would be better off putting their energies into developing a world where men don't feel like every public space is theirs and that women are guests in those spaces. 

I think that women who don't feel safe enough to call out inappropriate behaviour should try it, just once, by using the Stare (the trick is to keep staring with as much disdain as you can for as long as it takes, without reacting to anything the guy is saying or doing). The chances of some prick getting violent with you or doing anything worse than maybe calling you some names is slim enough that the statement you'll be making is worth it.

I think that other women should stay ready to step up and support other women being harassed when they witness it. Don't worry about whether or not it's your business, just go over to that other woman and ask her if she's okay. 

I think women should just decide what they will and will not accept and truly, honestly, believe in their bones that they are worth the freedom of living their lives as they choose without the Male Gaze and its effects.

And I think that men who harass women deserve to get beat with a shoe if that's what it takes for them to understand that we will not tolerate this any longer. GET MAD!