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sorcyressI don't often feel it necessary to make posts with subjects like this, but I've had two weird/unpleasant encounters with strange dudes in the last 24 hours, and I wanna document them for various reasons, not the least of which is "dear dude friends, don't do this".
The more benign of the two was just a few minutes ago. I was standing outside of a locksmith, with my cell phone to my ear so I could call him and ask when he would be returning to his shop1. An older (mid 40s?) white man walks out of the building, stares at me, and then tells me "he'll be returning at three".
Possibly I would not have felt so utterly, textbook, mansplained to had it not been for two factors. One, that the only reason this stranger knew the locksmith would be back at three was because there was a sign on the door that clearly said so --I am not so oblivious as to be able to determine the hours of the shop, and the number to call, but clearly miss the sign on the door.
And two, at the time I received this information, it was already 3:36. If that's not the definition of mansplaining, I don't know what is --an older dude giving a younger woman information that she already knew or could figure out, and was easily proven incorrect. I roll my eyes mightily.
((I would perhaps be rolling my eyes less if his tone of voice had been a lot less "jeeze, can't she see the sign" or if he had asked "are you trying to find the locksmith" or had actually come across as helpful rather than authoritarian. For all the information he had, I needed to make a call and just happened to be standing in front of this business.))
The less benign of the interactions was last night, and I'm gonna toss in a very light trigger warning for stalking/creeping.
So, I was biking home last night, well after dark. Soon after I passed through Davis and was starting up College towards home, there was a dude on a bike behind me. He called out something like "hey, this works out since I only have a taillight", in reference to the fact that I (currently, I will fix this asap) only have a headlight for my bike.
Now, riding in order so that the person with the best headlight is at the front of the queue and the best taillight is at the back is a conscious decision I make with my biker friends on a relatively frequent basis. It's a perfectly sensible thing to do. It's not even particularly weird or unpleasant when it happens with complete strangers --traveling in packs increases our collective visibility and results in less death all around. So I have no problem with that first statement, hell, it's very much the sort of thing I would say were our positions reversed.
But the point stands that he was an older-than-me and probably bigger than me male-looking person (quite an impressive beard!), and that I am a small and slight and weak-appearing female-looking person. And I have become very well trained to, on the streets of my city, go completely blank when I hear someone shouting at me from any form of transit2. Ignoring them feels safer than engaging, and potentially getting run off the road by a vehicle that outweighs me by several thousand pounds.
So once my heart had un-jumped from the oh-goddamnit-not-again painful default, and I had realized he was just being friendly, I was able to call back to him "yeah, but how far are you going?" I felt this was a reasonable next piece of friendly banter, and more importantly, I wanted to know for how long would I be directly followed by someone. If he said in advance which spoke of Powderhouse he was planning on taking, I would be much less bothered if our travel directions were then the same.
He did not give me any sort of reassuring answer. I can understand not wanting to give your exact address or destination to a stranger on the street, but there's a lot of answers that would've served. "Near Powderhouse Circle". "On Broadway". "West Medford". "That really good sushi place". All of those would've been awesome answers. Hell, if he'd just ignored me, that still would've been better than what he actually said.
"Well we'll see, won't we." he chuckled.
NO WE WILL FUCKING NOT SEE. YOU FUCKING TELL ME WHERE YOU'RE GOING RIGHT THE FUCK NOW OR THE PLACE I'LL BE GOING IS TO THE HOME OF ANY LARGE FRIEND WHO'LL KICK YOUR TEETH IN.
I had presence of mind to reply with something sarcastic, along the lines of "yeah, because that's reassuring", and then I shut my damn mouth and let my brain frantically freewheel and recall how to go the long way around to my house, or maybe if I shouldn't just go on a different spoke of Powderhouse entirely, or or or
Because while I'm relatively sure as a person that he thought he was just bantering, making a cute joke, HOLY SHIT, as a small female-appearing individual who has spent a great many years WELL AWARE of both the dangers that can befall women3 and all the ways that women3 get blamed for encountering those dangers, I was more than ready to get the fuck out of dodge. Of all the possible answers he could've given, he chose one that implied "I might just follow you home!".
Dear men, of all variation. Do not fucking give strange women you meet on the streets any variation of the phrase "I might just follow you home". Holy shit, I should not remotely have to say that to people, not ever. Because as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he was no longer schrodinger's rapist. He was a man, bigger than me, following me, and based on what he had said, possibly going to stalk me to my door.
I was incredibly relieved when he made a left turn at Powderhouse4 to skip off up Broadway, and I was able to coast around the circle to take my spoke in peace. I still went damn slow, made sure his taillight was still moving steadily away, before I took it.
Because ninety-nine percent chance he was a totally cool and friendly dude, who just likes having jovial banter with strangers out and about in the world. Somerville, Davis especially, is full of amazing, fascinating, people and I've had some _wondrous_ profitable conversations with them.
But goddamn if I'm not going to do everything in my power to prevent that one percent.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Normally I am not so bold, I made the call on the (asked for, wanted, very good) advice of the guy who ran the appliance repair shop next door.
2: Because more often than not, it's coming from a car, and the guy driving it wants to let me know I'm a cunt, in case I had somehow forgotten this fact.
3: And woman-appearing/woman-presenting people. I am not a girl, but I've been heavily socialized like one.
4: Like, enough so that I'm not even annoyed at him for making a left turn at Powderhouse.
POST SCRIPT: Tonight is birthday ice cream night! Haul your arses down to JP Licks between, I dunno, 7:00 and 9:00 PM or so, and get ice cream and sing Happy Birthday to me or variations or whatever. I will make another post when I actually head out.
The more benign of the two was just a few minutes ago. I was standing outside of a locksmith, with my cell phone to my ear so I could call him and ask when he would be returning to his shop1. An older (mid 40s?) white man walks out of the building, stares at me, and then tells me "he'll be returning at three".
Possibly I would not have felt so utterly, textbook, mansplained to had it not been for two factors. One, that the only reason this stranger knew the locksmith would be back at three was because there was a sign on the door that clearly said so --I am not so oblivious as to be able to determine the hours of the shop, and the number to call, but clearly miss the sign on the door.
And two, at the time I received this information, it was already 3:36. If that's not the definition of mansplaining, I don't know what is --an older dude giving a younger woman information that she already knew or could figure out, and was easily proven incorrect. I roll my eyes mightily.
((I would perhaps be rolling my eyes less if his tone of voice had been a lot less "jeeze, can't she see the sign" or if he had asked "are you trying to find the locksmith" or had actually come across as helpful rather than authoritarian. For all the information he had, I needed to make a call and just happened to be standing in front of this business.))
The less benign of the interactions was last night, and I'm gonna toss in a very light trigger warning for stalking/creeping.
So, I was biking home last night, well after dark. Soon after I passed through Davis and was starting up College towards home, there was a dude on a bike behind me. He called out something like "hey, this works out since I only have a taillight", in reference to the fact that I (currently, I will fix this asap) only have a headlight for my bike.
Now, riding in order so that the person with the best headlight is at the front of the queue and the best taillight is at the back is a conscious decision I make with my biker friends on a relatively frequent basis. It's a perfectly sensible thing to do. It's not even particularly weird or unpleasant when it happens with complete strangers --traveling in packs increases our collective visibility and results in less death all around. So I have no problem with that first statement, hell, it's very much the sort of thing I would say were our positions reversed.
But the point stands that he was an older-than-me and probably bigger than me male-looking person (quite an impressive beard!), and that I am a small and slight and weak-appearing female-looking person. And I have become very well trained to, on the streets of my city, go completely blank when I hear someone shouting at me from any form of transit2. Ignoring them feels safer than engaging, and potentially getting run off the road by a vehicle that outweighs me by several thousand pounds.
So once my heart had un-jumped from the oh-goddamnit-not-again painful default, and I had realized he was just being friendly, I was able to call back to him "yeah, but how far are you going?" I felt this was a reasonable next piece of friendly banter, and more importantly, I wanted to know for how long would I be directly followed by someone. If he said in advance which spoke of Powderhouse he was planning on taking, I would be much less bothered if our travel directions were then the same.
He did not give me any sort of reassuring answer. I can understand not wanting to give your exact address or destination to a stranger on the street, but there's a lot of answers that would've served. "Near Powderhouse Circle". "On Broadway". "West Medford". "That really good sushi place". All of those would've been awesome answers. Hell, if he'd just ignored me, that still would've been better than what he actually said.
"Well we'll see, won't we." he chuckled.
NO WE WILL FUCKING NOT SEE. YOU FUCKING TELL ME WHERE YOU'RE GOING RIGHT THE FUCK NOW OR THE PLACE I'LL BE GOING IS TO THE HOME OF ANY LARGE FRIEND WHO'LL KICK YOUR TEETH IN.
I had presence of mind to reply with something sarcastic, along the lines of "yeah, because that's reassuring", and then I shut my damn mouth and let my brain frantically freewheel and recall how to go the long way around to my house, or maybe if I shouldn't just go on a different spoke of Powderhouse entirely, or or or
Because while I'm relatively sure as a person that he thought he was just bantering, making a cute joke, HOLY SHIT, as a small female-appearing individual who has spent a great many years WELL AWARE of both the dangers that can befall women3 and all the ways that women3 get blamed for encountering those dangers, I was more than ready to get the fuck out of dodge. Of all the possible answers he could've given, he chose one that implied "I might just follow you home!".
Dear men, of all variation. Do not fucking give strange women you meet on the streets any variation of the phrase "I might just follow you home". Holy shit, I should not remotely have to say that to people, not ever. Because as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he was no longer schrodinger's rapist. He was a man, bigger than me, following me, and based on what he had said, possibly going to stalk me to my door.
I was incredibly relieved when he made a left turn at Powderhouse4 to skip off up Broadway, and I was able to coast around the circle to take my spoke in peace. I still went damn slow, made sure his taillight was still moving steadily away, before I took it.
Because ninety-nine percent chance he was a totally cool and friendly dude, who just likes having jovial banter with strangers out and about in the world. Somerville, Davis especially, is full of amazing, fascinating, people and I've had some _wondrous_ profitable conversations with them.
But goddamn if I'm not going to do everything in my power to prevent that one percent.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Normally I am not so bold, I made the call on the (asked for, wanted, very good) advice of the guy who ran the appliance repair shop next door.
2: Because more often than not, it's coming from a car, and the guy driving it wants to let me know I'm a cunt, in case I had somehow forgotten this fact.
3: And woman-appearing/woman-presenting people. I am not a girl, but I've been heavily socialized like one.
4: Like, enough so that I'm not even annoyed at him for making a left turn at Powderhouse.
POST SCRIPT: Tonight is birthday ice cream night! Haul your arses down to JP Licks between, I dunno, 7:00 and 9:00 PM or so, and get ice cream and sing Happy Birthday to me or variations or whatever. I will make another post when I actually head out.
no subject
on 2014-09-04 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2014-09-04 09:22 pm (UTC)Also! I shall eat some coconut chocklit ice "cream" in honour of your birthday ^_^
no subject
on 2014-09-04 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2014-09-12 02:18 am (UTC)Also, it feels really icky to realize that 5-10 years ago I could have said something like that (intending it as a pedantic or smart-ass reply, not coy banter, let alone a come-on.)
I don't think I'd be so clueless/context-unaware today as to make this kind of creepy-interpretable comment, but all the same, thank you for posting. It's like a booster shot: "Hello, yes, the world still sucks in many ways."