tweet by Zara Larsson @zaralarsson:
Isn’t it strange how every woman knows someone who’s been sexually harassed but no man seem to know any harasser?
tweet by Zara Larsson @zaralarsson:
Isn’t it strange how every woman knows someone who’s been sexually harassed but no man seem to know any harasser?
You know, when MeToo came out, I thought I’d been lucky because I’d never been harassed.
And then I thought about it, and I remembered:
Walking through the mall and a guy making the “big jugs” gesture at the male friend I was walking with, congratulating my friend on his date (it wasn’t a date).
The older guy who tried to pick up noticably-underage me at the town fair, then followed me around, and how I literally had to run into the woods to get away from him.
The kid I went to school with who tried to finger me in the football stands.
The senior manager at a large programming firm who thought it was appropriate (very visibly in his company office) to hang a shadow box with a bunch of little medallions in it. Except when you looked closely at the medallions, you found out that they were actually hooker tags from quite a number of brothels.
The greying mechanic my mom had come over to work on her car while she was at work, who wanted 15-year-old me to kiss him.
The multiple coworkers who deliberately kept making crude sexual jokes, and if you ignore them or join in, they take it as permission to keep going, and if you’re uncomfortable or say something they take it as a challenge and escalate, and if you report it you end up getting fired for something else in the next month or so.
Slapping hands away, so many times.
And even in the context of MeToo, I thought I hadn’t been harrassed, when in reality I’d just normalized the harassment and ignored it. Because it wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t ‘abuse’, it wasn’t constant.
But while it may not have been constant, it was persistent. There wasn’t a single place that I was ever safe. The carefree town fair, the local shops, school, work, my own home when the mechanic came in to use the bathroom. There’s literally no place in my life where intrusive men haven’t tried to insert themselves, without invitation, without even asking.
And I look at this meme and it’s “every woman knows someone who’s been harassed”, and I think over my own experience, and that of all my female relatives, and friends, and schoolmates, and coworkers, and I think that meme is wrong.
I think pretty much every woman has been harassed. It’s just that, like me, they learned to ignore and then forget these things, because they weren’t as bad as the really bad things that have happened to some of the women we know. But - and not discounting the really bad experiences some people I know have had - these experiences were all bad enough.
MeToo.
Well said, I think OP of the tweet probably wanted to avoid replies from women claiming they hadn’t had these experiences (most likely because like you, like me, like so many of us, they internalised it), but I’m with you - I don’t know a single woman who has managed to escape harassment (at the very least). From before we even hit puberty, for our entire lives, it’s like this background noise, and half the population pretending they don’t even hear it feels like a slap in the face.
Fuck, I’m cis-het guy and I hadn’t really thought about it until #MeToo, but MeToo.
Hanging out with my girlfriend, her friends & my wife and one of the guy friends grabbed my junk and said that “you have a nice package”. I moved away from him, but otherwise, the night just continued as it had been and I went on with my life.
There have been a few other instances, sometimes with men, sometimes with women, but, fuck if that isn’t a shitty realization to have come to.
Once, to show her daily experience, my gf at the time (now wife) had me walk far enough in front of her that we didn’t appear together, but not so far I wouldn’t be able to hear. The amount of catcalls when walking down a city street while dressed non-provactively was fucking ridiculous (it would still be ridiculous if she were ‘dressed to impress’ to be fair, but I’m trying to illustrate that she wasn’t dressed in any way that could ‘generously’ be interpreted as ‘asking for the attention’). I hadn’t not believed her before, but seeing it myself was eye opening and made me realize I need to not be in a bubble when I’m out and about.
Anyone who identifies as a guy and says “I’ve never seen someone getting harassed” … open your eyes and ears as you walk through the world and see if that’s actually true or if you just didn’t pay enough attention to notice it.
Ask basically any woman you know if they’ve ever gotten catcalled or had their ass grabbed in public or at what age men in their 40s started sexualizing them; if you have a close enough relationship, I can almost guarantee that they’ll say ‘yes’ to the first couple and 12-14ish for the last one – and those are direct questions rather than “have you been harassed” which might be more open to self-deception.
Everyone knows it’s not ALL men, but I have to imagine that it feels close-a-fucking-nough when you’re getting harassed on what feels like a constant basis.
ETA: And with your eyes/ears opened if you notice something, say something! Do something.
This is well put, shame those who need to hear it most will refuse to listen (to advice like yours, but definitely not to any women they might have in their lives)