Saying No

It’s Saturday night and you are on your way to meet friends for an evening out. You are catching up with one friend as you wait for the final member of your group to join you. You are laughing about something. You forget now what it was.

A man approaches.  He is a stranger and not necessarily menacing, but…you can sense it coming.

A grin breaks his face open and there is a hint of swagger in his walk. Maybe he is thinking he is about to make your day.  He speaks.

“Can I just say...?"

“No.”

You say no.  You say no with a straight spine, a straight face, and an even tone in your voice.

“No, you may not.  Please leave us alone. Really.”

His face darkens.

“Really?”

Yes, really.

You say no, and in saying no you stop him from what he thought was going to be the highlight of your day. You are firm. You won’t allow yourself to be “complimented,” objectified, verbally assaulted. He is shocked, then enraged. He sends a stream of expletives and insults your way. Now you are a “dyke” because you didn’t succumb to his charms. Now you are “ugly” and “dumb” because you weren’t grateful that he deemed you worthy of his attention. He leaves your friend alone, maybe because she didn’t turn around when he approached. Maybe you were his only target.

You aren’t scared of him. You are furious and fearless, even in the face of his threats. He is now your target, the way you were his. He is every man you backed away from, every man who filled you with fear and shame. You stand on the corner, looking him in the eye, never averting your gaze as he showers you with invectives.

“Remember my face!”  He shouts as he crosses the street.

“No,” you think. “Remember mine.”

#YesAllWomen

I find myself thinking about all of the times I have tried to make myself forget.

I think about that time at a friend’s quinceñera when an older boy moving through the crowd squeezed by me, his hand brushing my crotch. No, not brushing. His hand didn’t slip; he pushed his palm against the peach taffeta of my dress and between my legs. I was two weeks shy of turning thirteen.

One of my father’s friends told me I was beautiful after he forced his tongue into my mouth as we stood in the entryway of his home. He was in pajama pants and an undershirt. I was in jeans and an oversized men’s shirt. It was my first day of high school.

“She’s fuckable.” That’s what a boy said about me when he heard I had a crush on him. I was sixteen.

I think of how when I spoke of my assault at 14—because I know now that it was an assault—I was silenced by some of the women and girls in my life. “No one wants to hear about that…”

A colleague, someone I considered a mentor, tells me over dinner about how he met his wife. When I say I hope for that kind of longevity in my own life, he tells me that my problem is that I am too independent. Then he tells me that there is something about me he cannot shake and that he is all caught up in it. I spend the next hours, weeks, and months, feeling anxious whenever I encounter him, wondering what I did to provoke him, rather than wondering why he thought it was OK to say that to me in that moment. Or ever.  

As I get ready to leave the house every day, I check the mirror. I think I look nice, but I also know that somewhere along my walk across town a man will make a comment that I am supposed to take as a compliment. It is not vanity; it is fear.

I think of the time a man asked me my ethnicity as I passed him on the street. And when I apologized (!) and said I could not speak to him because I was late for an appointment, he followed me down the crowded city street, berating me for half a block.

I ignore a catcall on my way home from work and am followed, my “admirer’s” words escalating. I have to seal myself off, steel myself, and hope that the light does not turn red before I can get to the intersection.

I think about all the times I walked home alone after a night out with friends and made it safely to my apartment. I think about how my girlfriends and I text each other to say we are on our way to the meeting place or that we have made it home from the meeting place safely.

I think about how I make a point of meeting dates at a restaurant or bar where I know the staff.

I think about the night I sat at the opposite end of a bar from another single woman during happy hour, both of us waiting for friends who were running late. I think about how the man who sat between us is the reason she and I became friends that night.

I think about how the women I am closest to all have stories like these.  I think about how we recognized that silence in each other for months or years before we were brave enough to share our experiences. I think about how those friendships have been deepened.

I think about the guilt and the shame that comes with the silence and how this movement has brought all of that noise back to my surface; how it has allowed me to reevaluate and remind myself that none of it was my fault.

I think about how thinking about all of these things tonight makes me frightened of trying to date again because although all men are not “like that,” all women have experiences like these.

I think about believing that I can still be fearless with my heart while protecting my body, my being.

Enough.

To the men I encountered on my way to and from work today:

I assume you think you are complimenting me when you share your opinions about my hair, clothes, legs, etc.; I assure you that you are only succeeding in making me angry. Twice today, men not only referred to me as “delicious” as I walked by, but they followed me for a few steps. How is that supposed to make me feel anything other than objectified, unsafe, and more than a little creeped out?  Gentlemen, I PROMISE you that the approach you seem to be so fond of will NEVER result in my saying, “and that’s how I met your father.” 

If you heard a man speaking this way toward your wife, girlfriend, sister, mother, niece, or daughter, you would want to take action, right? This is my action, my response to your disrespecting me and all the women in your life with your catcalls, leering,muttering and following. It’s not even WHAT you are saying at this point, it is HOW. The power is in the tone you use when you speak to me—at me—as I walk by.  When you use that tone to say I look "delicious," I am no longer a woman; I am a thing.

You know what would be better (and by better I mean, more respectful)? If you acknowledged me as a person, and not as an object, by smiling or nodding in my direction, then I would reply in kind.  If you feel compelled to speak to me, then try wishing me a good morning, good afternoon, or good evening.  Again, I will respond in kind. I don’t find it amusing, charming, or endearing when you say and do the things you said and did today. You like my haircut? I don’t care. You think I have nice legs? Keep it to yourself. You think I should smile? You don’t know me, you don’t know what kind of day I’m having, but you should know that your encouragement is not going to turn my frown upside down.


Let’s review:

1.     You don’t know me.

2.     Your behavior is not going to create a situation in which you get to know me.

3.     Next time you are tempted to engage me, think of the women in your life  

4.     Stop it.

5.     These are the most words you are ever going to receive in response to your behavior toward me.