A little bit about harassment

Girls are usually a victim of some form of sexual harassment or another, be it that lecherous leer everytime you walk past a table of old men, or the wolf-whistles from a swiftly passing motorcycle, or the accidental bumps and stumbles that inevitably leads to a pointed look down the cleavage, a grope of the butt, a flasher. I have been fortunate enough to not have met too much of these, or have them severe enough to lead to rape. I have met every single one of those harassments, which most people do not understand is as psychological as physical. I know i should not back down and just let them stare at me, but i can’t help but to meekly put my head down and quickly shuffle past the tables or shrug off the wolf-whistles everytime it happens. I’m ashamed that I FEEL ashamed that other people are harassing me (in whatever way) when i’m supposed to be defiant and bring them down in humility.

However, logic in every single one of these circumstances tells me that if i do anything, I might endanger myself even more as opposed to putting my head down, and rushing my embarrassment past its entity.

And BS to anyone who says our clothes scream rape or attracts unwanted attention. It’s a mindset that needs changing. Nothing more can be said about this severely chewed on topic.

Today however, I’m not addressing the issue of harassment.

I have the pleasure of having my boyfriend stay across the road from me, so whenever I want to see him, I’ll just walk across the main road and pop my head into his rented room. It is that simple (yay for convenience). However, it is a busy main road I have to cross, with three lanes on each side, which effectively means I actually have to cross 6 different lanes. So, it is with a certain element of danger everytime I walk past the two streets as I chance my life on the mercy of the cars that speed before me. The bf and the mom always always always worry for me when I cross, and he used to stand across the road just to make sure I can safely go to him, or I can safely walk back home. He has a very bad impression of me as I seem to be very clumsy around him, but that is a digression I shall leave for another day.

So I was doing my usual walk today, and everything would have gone perfectly fine… if the cars did what normal cars should do – speed right past me and along their own merry way.

But no, for some reason a ‘kind samaritan’ driver was speeding along, and stopped just before me and let me cross. This induced the driver who was a distance behind him to cut him and go to the  lane on his left, which is the one I have to cross after. I was stuck in between the two lanes and had cars rushing past me. To make things worse, another car stopped just in front of me while I was painstakingly waiting for all of them to MOVE, to offer me some advice: “be careful when you cross the road.” Which, in effect, was the action that could have killed me if a wayward motorcyclist happened to skim by.

I know very well that they’re such ’samaritans’ because I happened to be wearing a denim skirt. The advice was accompanied with a suspicious smile, and what man stops in the middle of speeding just to let you cross the road?! This probably does not fall under the harassment category, maybe the men are really JUST nice people who let pedestrians cross the road. But optimism aside, LET A GIRL FREAKING CROSS THE ROAD BY HERSELF. All the help i got this afternoon almost killed me.

And shamefully, the first thought i had after safely reaching the other side is: “I cannot wear skirts when I wanna cross the road.”

It’s a mindset change we need, not our wardrobes.