As A Woman
What it feels like to be groped
“How would you feel if a random woman grabbed your crotch?”
He grins. “Flattered, I guess.” I look at him over my glasses, not knowing what to say.
“You’d be flattered?”
“Yeah. If she wasn’t ugly.”
“And if she was?”
He shrugs. “I just wouldn’t tell my mates.”
“You wouldn’t find it scary?”
He laughs. “It’s not like I couldn’t kill her with a punch, is it?”
You could kill me
“That’s why I’m scared when it happens. Men can kill women. Men can really hurt us if we don’t do what they want-”
“Learn self defence then.” He interrupts. I look at him incredulously.
“Even if I did, the average man could still do serious damage to me with a single blow. And if I do use physical force, he can retaliate with worse. It’s provocative. I don’t know which random stranger harbors an internalised rage against rejection or being physically refused.”
“Well just don’t hang around creepy men then.”
I’m eighteen and with two male friends that I’ve known for years. We haven’t been drinking but now one pushes me up against the wall and pushes the other man on top of me. My back still had a scar from the flint and I can feel his crotch pressing into me as my other friend watches grinning
“Its not that simple. You don’t just know if a man is a sexual predator.” I hear my voice trembling.
Until its too late
“I’m just saying you should take precautions. Stay in public spaces and where people can protect you.”
I’m thirteen and at the bus stop with my grandma. A man puts his hands inside my school blazer on my breasts and she says nothing
“It’s not realistic to demand I stay indoors or in public all the time. I have to live.”
“Just wear modest clothing and don’t make eye contact.”
Was my school uniform too immodest
“They still do it.”
“That’s a compliment then. That means you are naturally pretty.”
I’m twenty one when a man follows me for ten minutes saying how pretty I’d look with a bullet in my head
“I don’t like it. I’m tired of feeling scared and I’m tired of men putting the onus on me for not experiencing assault or worse.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m bored of you endlessly talking about feminism. Not all guys are creepy.”
The same man who said that would grope me when he thought I was asleep
