The front flowerbed at Arb’s and my place is starting to take off – perennials that I’ve planted over the couple years we’ve owned the house, are established enough now, that they can dedicate some energy to blooming! Of course, weather that’s good for flowers is also good for weeds, and our weed crop is plentiful, so I was out pulling weeds yesterday evening.
Working in the front yard is not a peaceful and relaxing experience for me. I feel self-conscious about bending over with my back to the street and my butt in the air and often get into weird positions trying to avoid it. I’m on edge and there’s a constant stream of snarky comebacks and verbal self-defense going on in my head, along with self-pep-talks about how this is my yard and I have the right to be in it and what I look like while doing yardwork is nobody’s business.
Why?
In a word: men.
Like last night when a carload of young men appeared seemingly out of nowhere, yelled something about my fat ass, and peeled out with a screech of tires and raucous laughter.
This shit doesn’t happen super-often – not every time I’m out in the front yard, for example. But it’s often enough that anticipating it and steeling myself against it, takes a non-negligible portion of my mental CPU cycles. It doesn’t matter that not every man who passes by harasses me, and that in general not all men harass women. Enough men harass women often enough, that being on guard against it is an almost-constant thing you do, if you’re a woman.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
7 comments
June 1, 2015 at 12:31 am
bleatmop
TIO – You have been a blogging powerhouse lately. Well played! It’s been a good week of reading.
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June 1, 2015 at 8:16 am
Marie
I once ripped up my front lawn to put in a garden, and a group of male university students across the street dragged out a couch to sit and watch while drinking. Later that night, while getting my baby into bed, with my 3-year-old looking out the open window, one of the clowns yelled, “Thanks for not wearing a bra today!” and my little one yelled back, “You’re welcome!”
It was a better response than I could have come up with!
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June 1, 2015 at 8:29 am
john zande
Are you serious? Someone actually went to the bother of pulling up and hollering some retarded screed? I don’t understand people. I really don’t.
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June 1, 2015 at 8:35 am
The Intransigent One
@bleatmop – Thanks!
@john zande – yes, Marie and I are absolutely serious. This shit happens to women with exhausting regularity.
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June 1, 2015 at 11:23 am
robert browning
I hear ya. Mob mentality is ugly.
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June 2, 2015 at 7:28 am
Steve Ruis
This post has been bothering me since I read it yesterday. I do not dispute the men make random crass statements toward women not of their acquaintance. They also do it to men, cats, dogs, and cattle in the field. What I hated to see is that you took their “comment” to heart. I would rather have you own the size of your ass, big or small, and respond (in your mind, not out loud) as Winston Churchill would “Yes, my ass may be fat, but I can diet and make it smaller but, you, sir, are a moron and there is no diet for that.” And then forget the whole thing as I am sure those callous youths have done.
Taking burdens from unworthy people is a way to weigh down your life and only leads to depression. When I receive unsolicited criticism it hurts, but I imagine a duck’s back and water streaming off of it, take a deep breath and mutter “Don’t let the bastards wear you down or its Latin equivalent.”
Don’t let fools steal your good nature.
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June 2, 2015 at 9:04 am
The Intransigent One
I think what you’ve missed, Steve, is that I am quite comfortable with the size of my ass. And honestly, I would feel the same way about the whole situation if those men had waxed poetic about the glory of my beautiful ass. (Actually, come to think of it, that would have been worse because it would have taken longer.) I am documenting this incident, not as a plea for validation about my ass, but as an example of what all women go through, continually, just for being women.
My point is that the whole process of coming up with a Winston Churchill comeback, and letting it stream away like water off a duck’s back, is not entirely effortless. Each small incident of harassment is just that, small, but is part of a pattern that adds up, incident by incident, over the years, into a significant cost to me. I should not be required to bear this cost, simply for going about my life while female.
Further, as satisfying as a Winston Churchill comeback might be, saying it out loud is not an option that is safely available. You see, while only a subset of men harass women, there is a subset of those men, who become violent when they find your response unacceptable. And the only way you can tell which men those are, is if you push back, and they become violent. See http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/ for examples.
So when a carload of young punks drives up and insults me, it’s not just the indignity of being called a fatass; it’s a threatening situation that I have to defuse. If they’re willing to hurl insults at a stranger, what else might they by capable of? Stopping? Getting out of the car? I’m sure as hell not going to escalate things. Because some men are violent, the prudent thing is to accept humiliating treatment from any man. Swallowing all those small humiliations, continually, year after year, costs me and costs all women.
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