Outside of work today, a man heckled to me from the passenger seat of a car. “Hey! Hey!” I turned and saw the window down, but he wasn’t looking at me. I continued wiping tables and heard, “Excuse me! Excuse me!”
When I turned this time, he was looking, but not steadily, like he had anything real to say. I shrugged it off and started walking back, but then he called me a bitch. So I casually flicked him off without looking. In the store, I saw him staring after me with a stupid look on his face, like he couldn’t believe what happened.
When I go out at nights by myself, I’m hit with the realization there’s a world in which women don’t feel they can participate in because, frankly, we’re not safe. Men can go get tacos by themselves at midnight. Men can ride the metro at 1 in the morning. Men can go jogging past 8 p.m.
Not to say that women actually can’t do these things, but there’s a real fear there. Not for girls like me who have frankly accepted if someone wants to hurt me, they probably could, but for a lot of girls who want to do things, but don’t. For all my friends who feel unsafe. For all my friends who would have a stranger call them a bitch and internalize it.
I wonder why my mom named me after Madame Nhu. Did she know I’d be the tough gal I turned out to be?
A STOR¥ BY ? 