Do you know what irritates me? Everyday sexism. I’ve just moved into a new flat and every time I step out of or return home, a motorcycle taxi driver [we have those in Bangkok] based on my street calls out to me to tell me I am sexy and beautiful. At first, I admit, I was a little flattered, but after it happened a few times I started to get embarrassed. I don’t want to engage in a conversation with him and I don’t want to feel that I’m being assessed every time I go out. I’m not an object.
It started as soon as I moved in and it happened several times a day, so, reluctantly after a week or so, I told my boyfriend about the problem and asked him to walk in and out of the flat with me a few times that day so the driver gets the idea that I was taken. I say I asked him reluctantly because, you know what, the fact that I “belong” to someone else shouldn’t be the only reason I can stop being harassed. What if I was single? Does that mean I am free to be harassed by whoever takes a fancy to me?
But, of course, my boyfriend did his masculine duty of holding my hand and giving the guy an evil look as we walked past, as I suspected he might, and the guy duly stopped harassing me when I left the flat.
I can’t tell you how much I hate this whole situation. I dislike the fact that, as a woman, it’s almost an everyday occurrence to get some kind of comment on my looks; whether it’s a man commenting that I’m “strong for a girl” when I’m in the gym, or friends of my boyfriend telling him I’ve put on weight or speculating about whether I am pregnant [I get this almost weekly, even though my weight hasn’t changed at all — I’m not pregnant, by the way], or men telling me that I’m looking sexy or have a good shape every time I leave the house.
I also dislike the fact that despite all my efforts to stop this harassment [saying a stern “thanks”, or ignoring him or pointedly crossing the street to avoid him], I still get the comments and, worst of all, the wolf whistles all the way down the street [I NEVER even flinch when people whistling at me because I’m a woman, not a dog], and doesn’t stop until another man — my boyfriend — makes it clear he was stepping on his turf. At least, that’s how it felt.
I am a strong, independent woman, I earn my own money, I have a career and I am physically strong [probably stronger than most untrained men], yet I needed a man to sort the situation for me. I felt intimidated just walking in and out of my flat, not least because I felt I couldn’t deal with it myself.
May be to guys out there it seems harmless; just a few compliments. But, when you’re walking around late at night [as is my right] and a man you don’t know is shouting to you about your body, it’s, at best an annoyance and at worst, intimidating and a little scary, actually.
It’s a dent to my ego to have to get my boyfriend to sort out my problems. One that was as simple as him giving a proprietorial glance.
I doubt this guy or my boyfriend has given this much of a second thought but, for me, the whole experience is humiliating. Imagining the situation the other way round is almost comical because, as we all know, that situation would never occur. What a funny world we live in where our gender has such bearing on the way people think of us and treat us, without actually knowing anything about us. I love being a woman, but I am a lot more than my gender.
