Posts tagged sexism

This morning has got off to a great start! I protected a woman from a creeper who was making her uncomfortable with his unwanted advances.

He tried to rope me into it earlier by asking me if he was on the downtown platform, but I was brief with him and returned to reading my book without another word. Aside from the fact that a sign that said DOWNTOWN hung right above us, I caught him staring at my ass just before he asked the question, and in fact, I think the only reason he did was because I looked up at him quickly.

I heard him try to pull the same BS with this woman in running clothes out for an early jog. He kept trying to ask her about the number she was wearing (clearly was part of some event) and about her running prowess, which she was only answering halfheartedly until she’d resorted to just nodding. When he tried to dodge my dagger eyes on the platform, I stood right between them when we boarded the train. I usually try to sit down when I go in for my early-morning, 12-hour Sunday shifts because let’s face it, I’m fucking tired. But I just felt her pain way too much and held my ground, keeping an occasional glare going. She got off the train without being disturbed anymore. He tried to say bye to her and she walked off.

This also relates to Mother’s Day in a cosmic way because my abuelita and my mama used to do this when talking public transit in Mexico. Men did not fuck around with them. I’m so glad I’m finally being stronger about my beliefs and not letting people intimidate me with their bullshit ego, feigned respect and huge entitlement issues. I am a woman of color and it is my job to help my fellow women out.

Sexist men of the world, be afraid!

The thing about sexist men is that apparently they’re allowed to get raging mad or bitterly annoyed when women do things a certain way because “UGH, that’s how women are and they’re stupid, why do they do this???”

But the second you’re mad that they’re doing something a certain way or suggest that men are socialized a certain way, it’s misandry.

Yet they use the defense that they are allowed to disrespect us and participate in certain behaviors because “that’s just how men are.”

Wat.

As my favorite TV chef, Alton Brown, often says, “Your patience will be rewarded.”

I honestly think that’s key. That and using polite, appropriate language for talking to someone you don’t know.

A man sat across from me on the train today. He minded his business. He didn’t leer. In fact, this being NYC, I had no clue he’d even noticed me until he was preparing to get off at his stop.

“Excuse me, I just wanted to say you’re very pretty,” he said.

And it was pleasant. I said thank you, as I sincerely appreciated the sentiment. And that was it. No pressuring me for further interaction. No staring. No approaching me in an intimidating fashion. Just a polite compliment and we were both on our way.

As for the patience thing, when a guy immediately begins woofing at me the second I cross into his view, it feels like desperation. Like an ill-tempered dog barking at the crunching of a leaf outside the gate. I mean, if you don’t give a person the chance to breathe before you jump, it comes off as intimidating and voracious.

If she’s walking past, employ the politeness method. “Excuse me” is a good start. Finish with the compliment and let her go. You know how it feels when canvassers and political types stop you while on your way to work or the store. It’s annoying. They obviously have no clue about what important things are happening in your life right now. Why do they think they can stop you and force you to talk? The same with people. If they are on the move, let them go. If they want to discuss your compliment further, they will talk to you.

Needless to say, diminutive pet names, implied sex and inviting someone to your house is not polite or safe.

If you do this patience-politeness tactic already, excellent! If you are one of those creeps on the street who cat calls at everyone, mutters at women who walk by, stares impolitely, tries to touch people, calls women ~sexy~ names and generally over exerts themselves for female attention, you are breaking the rules of smart human interaction, and you should work on that.

In fact, this method can be used by anyone trying to compliment anybody. Complimenting a stranger simply requires civil human interaction.

Tl;dr: Don’t immediately pounce on an attractive person on the street to give a compliment. Wait if you can. Make the compliment polite.

This has been a PSA

If you really believe women have enough institutional power to give any weight to intentionally ludicrous statements like “kill all men” and/or could gather enough of a following to intentionally destroy all men or overthrow every man in power to create a matriarchy where men are little more than subordinates, I suggest you spend more time reading than being on the Internet.

You know what I’m getting so sick of? People acting like at a certain age, feminist women join a covenant of raging harpies bent on destroying the male population. I’m over people treating feminism like it’s a space where arrogant, whiny, irrelevant, unintelligent women go to feel wanted by seeking to destroy others.

I didn’t need feminism to teach what the fuck was wrong with the world.

• When I would look in the mirror and scrutinize myself, feeling my skin up and down for hair, then look at myself in disgust if I found any of it as if it was the most unnatural thing that ever happened, I knew it was wrong. I knew it was awful that I was shut up in the bathroom near tears at 12 years old because boys said girls with hair were “nasty.” I knew feeling like I had “body hair issues” that far superseded other girls at my school was farfetched. Other girls clearly had to shave, too. But I felt like the only one. Or like I had “too much to take care of.” I didn’t need feminism to know I was driving myself fucking insane when I shouldn’t have been.
• When I hated my breasts because I didn’t think they were sexually pleasing to boys when I was 14, I didn’t know shit about feminism. When women would tell me that I would grow in to my body and not everyone was the same, I didn’t believe them. I couldn’t believe them because of the crap I heard people (even other girls) say about female bodies. I didn’t need feminism to know boys viewed girls’ bodies unrealistically and that it was unfair.
• When I tried to be friends with boys in high school and got smacked, made to feel uncomfortable and told to “suck it up,” I knew I was getting a crap deal. I knew it was wrong that the only way to be friends with boys was to be a boy. I knew boys didn’t want to associate with me as anything more than a bank of sexual questions and perhaps sexual encounters. I didn’t need feminism to know boys didn’t treat me fairly or care about my friendship.
• I didn’t know fuck all about feminism when I saw the only way boys were accepted in school was to behave violently—and often disrespectfully. Boys who were quieter, intellectual and gentle were bullied or took to hanging out alone or with a small, eclectic mix of people all unfit to be in the “boys club.” I didn’t need feminism to realize it was fucked up that “real masculinity” was defined on such crude, unacceptable behavior—and that any man who didn’t fit that was as unwelcome as I was.
• When I would help people with their homework, I was hailed as “the smart girl,” but no one ever credited their success to me. It wasn’t that I needed the recognition, but I knew there was something inherently fucked with boys asking me to tutor them, then turning around and pretending they didn’t know me. I didn’t need feminism to realize that it was awful that admitting a girl was smarter than you was shameful.
• I didn’t need feminism to realize when my friend and I were running away from older men chasing us in their car that, that sort of thing typically didn’t happen to men. It wasn’t a ground-breaking discovery that women didn’t wait outside of my high school waiting to follow young boys home, hooting at them for expressed sexual purposes.
• Being taught that crime was more likely to happen to me because I was a girl, whether that was true or not, wasn’t something I needed feminism to decode. I understood that this implied that women were weak—helpless victims in a man’s world. I didn’t need to know fuck about feminism to realize that the world around me wants me to be the victim—and actively tries to make me one.

In fact, I didn’t realize there was still an active, loud feminist movement in this country (and worldwide) until I was 17. Society does not fucking teach feminism. Society doesn’t try to steer women and girls off the path of righteousness by encouraging feminism. People become feminists because they saw the world for its shit a long time ago. Children are not stupid, you guys. If you perpetually put young girls in unsafe environments (or claim that any environment they find themselves in is inherently unsafe for them), they will find out about feminism. And they will mobilize. So if you make it your mission to throw dirt on feminists, you’re just fueling that inner 11-year-old who got her hair pulled by boys who thought she was ugly for having small breasts or not feminine enough or too ________ for a girl.

Feminism doesn’t teach us what’s wrong with the world, though sometimes it paints a better picture. Feminism teaches us how to act on the unfairness. The need for feminism starts young, m’dears. Feminism is not enlightenment. And when people realize it has been kept secret from them all those years in required schooling, they just get madder. Feminism is what people do when they realize our society’s conception of gender is fucked and that there is something they can do about it. I didn’t declare myself a feminist because I was bored or feeling particularly unattractive one day. I am a feminist because I realized all the shit that made me angry as a kid was an actual problem with the WORLD, not just “part of growing up.”

People who slut shame are forever touting “respect” as a justification for their behavior.

But you know what’s disrespectful to oneself and others? Shaming people for what goes on in their private life.

Didn’t think about that, did we?

Why the fuck does anyone care how much of her breasts a woman shows?

Like, do you realize you’re literally sexualizing a part of someone’s body meant to feed babies?

A woman should be able to be wearing as revealing a top as she pleases. A woman’s boobs can be going any which way and showing almost completely and it shouldn’t matter.

Seriously, if you’re offended by breasts and/or can’t handle the sight of them for whatever reason, you should just stay indoors forever because you’re obviously not grown up enough to be around people with breasts, even if you have breasts yourself.

Why is it that any time a woman is attracted to anyone, people assume it’s for superficial reasons?

“Friendzoned” dudebros are forever saying that a woman who supposedly slighted them went for a guy because “all women care about is money and status.” Hmmm, right. It couldn’t POSSIBLY be because he’s successful, motivated, intelligent—all legitimate reasons as to why that man has a lot of money, in your sad, douchey eyes at least.

Either that or it’s “she only went for him because he’s hot.” Maybe to you. Maybe she didn’t think he was that hot at first, but he’s talented and makes her laugh and did something other than like her Facebook statuses and rage at her when she canceled plans every now and again when she was legitimately busy?

If you’re so quick to dismiss a woman’s reasoning for anything she does as vanity and superficiality, maybe it’s your fault you’re single. Please consider the fact that women don’t like their motives berated by men who would easily dismiss her as “like the rest” (whatever that means) as soon as she didn’t meet up to his version of ideal. Please consider the fact that women aren’t all shallow vaginaholes for you to get off on.