Public Approaches

It seems to be about every day now that I catch some street harassment. There is at least one person every day who wants to ruin mine by showing how misogynistic they are. Some guy will show off to an invisible audience by embarrassing some young (never old) lady with his unpleasant cat calls.

If you are wondering who the victim is, it is not me. And I feel sorry for a girl who honestly just wants to walk down the street. It's embarrassing to guys, really, more than it is to girls. These things increasingly bother me when I hear the same types of guys laugh about raping women (but it's just a joke, right?) and supposing women should be where they belong. And sometimes friends I would not expect to accept or pursue this behavior will shout out some line at a girl and then laugh to me expecting me to be impressed. I even hear myself say things sometimes.

Honestly, I cannot stand any of this. Men should be capable of knowing that this is not the way to flatter women. Some guy I talked to today said it works sometimes, but I could hardly believe him cause I had just confronted him for whistling at some girl about the way she was dressed as he rode past.

I was on my bike, too, and he had noticed me on the light rail earlier, so he rode next to me after giving that girl a tasteless impression of the average cyclist. I moved my bike closer to his and kept my voice low rather than getting aggravated.

"Hey, dude. Do you think that really works? What you said to that girl? Because I'm pretty sure women do not like being talked to that way."

We had a brief conversation afterward while we rode our bikes through the local college campus. He seemed like a guy who might have shouted back in confidence if I had raised my voice. If you yell at people for this sort of behavior, you better hope they are the shy type. And as he sung in sweet chatter that rang out positive tones, he did it with all of the wrong words. This was a guy, stuck in his world of persistent angst, who had picked up a nasty habit of hitting on girls in public.

But I persisted, and even brought up some issues my partner has had with her harassers and some of her friends. As it turned out, I was more impressive than I thought I would be. He seemed to come to some sort of understanding and accepted my points. Later on, I kept wondering if I could have the same effect on anyone I came up on the street doing this. This guy bore little resemblance to many of the harassers on the street. I cannot imagine using this technique every single time, but I am certain I will make my attempts when I am able.