(no subject)
Sep. 11th, 2014 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressTrigger Warning: Street Harassment, sexist slurs.
In "dudes suck and I hate them" news (as well as "seriously, this one particular batch of groceries was fucking cursed"), I had an unpleasant and blatent gross-dude-being-gross at me yesterday. After shopping, I was bending over my bicycle in order to sort out what groceries go where --even without the dangers of a rickety rack, this is a somewhat exciting adventure. I am startled by someone honking directly behind me. I presumed they were upset that I was close to the curb, and I was all set to give them the "look asshole, I'm on the sidewalk, this is as much space as I get, fuck off" glare, but when I caught their eye, they just gave me a lacivious look and drove off smirking. At which point I realized my crime was not taking up space, but the fact that I was bending over.
And here's why I roll my eyes at people who make tut-tut noises at women who wear short skirts or low-cut shirts, or whatever other comfortable clothing they want. Because I had a slimy dude pay me unwelcome and unwanted attention, and then drive away before I could confront him on it, and I was _wearing my fucking professional drag_. My line of work involves interacting with a large number of _teenaged boys_. I assure you, only the most utterly puritanical or otherwise deranged minds could find fault in my choice of work wardrobe, at least in terms of being "sexy" or exposing skin. Simply put, I don't, ever.
But no, apparently my perfectly functional act of bending over to pick up my groceries off the ground (where I had to put them while I unlocked my bike, because oh hi, while I can unlock the bike one handed, it's a pain in the ass and it's so much easier to just set down my stuff for a mo' to do so) was so unbelievably and blatantly attractive that this old asshole just *had* to let me know his "appreciation". I won't actually wish him to "die in a fire", because Heralds don't do that1, but I do wish that at some point he _truly understands_ what he's done to me and in all liklihood other women, and has to find a way to deal with the horror of permanently *being* the slime I (thankfully) temporarily felt.
I really don't understand what's been up with the recent past. I don't normally feel I recieve anywhere near this much street harrassment or bother, from men or otherwise. I generally notice when someone is being an asshole to me, especially when it has a creepy sexual slant to it, but I really have documented most of those incidents here --and if you've been reading a while, you'll recognize how rare that makes them.
I don't know if I'm just noticing them more, or if something in my demeanor has changed recently such that I'm recieving more harrassment. Or maybe it's just the full moon. Whatever it is, I seriously wish men could fucking _stop being assholes_ already, because it's really quite draining. At least online, I can tell them that "hey, using 'cunt' to attack a woman you don't like makes you a creepy sexist asshole and sets off huge warning bells"2 and block them, in real life I've no such recourse.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: I don't think I'm good enough, necessarily, to be a Herald, but I do think I'm good enough to want to be a Herald. I was thinking about this on the way home, for unrelated reasons.
2: Yes, this also happened. This morning in fact, as I was poking around on Facebook. Fun fact: You can absolutely despise a person, and say as much, without resorting to sexist (or racist, or homophobic, or appearance based, or whatever) slurs! Call a spade a spade, call an asshole an asshole, but if you attack someone for their gender (ie, cunt, bitch) then you're telling me you hate all women (including myself) rather than you hate that one woman.
Trigger Warning: Street Harassment, sexist slurs.
In "dudes suck and I hate them" news (as well as "seriously, this one particular batch of groceries was fucking cursed"), I had an unpleasant and blatent gross-dude-being-gross at me yesterday. After shopping, I was bending over my bicycle in order to sort out what groceries go where --even without the dangers of a rickety rack, this is a somewhat exciting adventure. I am startled by someone honking directly behind me. I presumed they were upset that I was close to the curb, and I was all set to give them the "look asshole, I'm on the sidewalk, this is as much space as I get, fuck off" glare, but when I caught their eye, they just gave me a lacivious look and drove off smirking. At which point I realized my crime was not taking up space, but the fact that I was bending over.
And here's why I roll my eyes at people who make tut-tut noises at women who wear short skirts or low-cut shirts, or whatever other comfortable clothing they want. Because I had a slimy dude pay me unwelcome and unwanted attention, and then drive away before I could confront him on it, and I was _wearing my fucking professional drag_. My line of work involves interacting with a large number of _teenaged boys_. I assure you, only the most utterly puritanical or otherwise deranged minds could find fault in my choice of work wardrobe, at least in terms of being "sexy" or exposing skin. Simply put, I don't, ever.
But no, apparently my perfectly functional act of bending over to pick up my groceries off the ground (where I had to put them while I unlocked my bike, because oh hi, while I can unlock the bike one handed, it's a pain in the ass and it's so much easier to just set down my stuff for a mo' to do so) was so unbelievably and blatantly attractive that this old asshole just *had* to let me know his "appreciation". I won't actually wish him to "die in a fire", because Heralds don't do that1, but I do wish that at some point he _truly understands_ what he's done to me and in all liklihood other women, and has to find a way to deal with the horror of permanently *being* the slime I (thankfully) temporarily felt.
I really don't understand what's been up with the recent past. I don't normally feel I recieve anywhere near this much street harrassment or bother, from men or otherwise. I generally notice when someone is being an asshole to me, especially when it has a creepy sexual slant to it, but I really have documented most of those incidents here --and if you've been reading a while, you'll recognize how rare that makes them.
I don't know if I'm just noticing them more, or if something in my demeanor has changed recently such that I'm recieving more harrassment. Or maybe it's just the full moon. Whatever it is, I seriously wish men could fucking _stop being assholes_ already, because it's really quite draining. At least online, I can tell them that "hey, using 'cunt' to attack a woman you don't like makes you a creepy sexist asshole and sets off huge warning bells"2 and block them, in real life I've no such recourse.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: I don't think I'm good enough, necessarily, to be a Herald, but I do think I'm good enough to want to be a Herald. I was thinking about this on the way home, for unrelated reasons.
2: Yes, this also happened. This morning in fact, as I was poking around on Facebook. Fun fact: You can absolutely despise a person, and say as much, without resorting to sexist (or racist, or homophobic, or appearance based, or whatever) slurs! Call a spade a spade, call an asshole an asshole, but if you attack someone for their gender (ie, cunt, bitch) then you're telling me you hate all women (including myself) rather than you hate that one woman.
Trigger Warning: Street Harassment, sexist slurs.
no subject
on 2014-09-11 04:58 pm (UTC)Sometimes I hate humans.
(Well, actually I always do, but things like this encourage me to hate them even more. And I don't have any obligations to not tell creepy guys to be boiled in oil.)
no subject
on 2014-09-11 05:59 pm (UTC)Some tangental musing follows:
I think it's still possible to use gendered insults without being a sexist asshole (and asshole is still gendered, of course, despite not having gender signs on it)
One tries not to, of course (I try not to!), and context matters [there's a huge difference between using one as an interjection, to yourself, rather than, say, posting this garbage to your wall]. But we've not yet developed a set of one or two syllable insults that contain the non-gendered, non-sexist components of what the older insults mean--which means that I end up at least some of the time having a gendered insult being what "search" pulls up, and hitting the choice of either having to filter, find a replacement, or what.
Of course, I have to guess that someone who socialized with one of the many insults that -I- consider unforgivably offensive (ones based on religion, or ethnicity, or sexuality, or gender status, for instance) but isn't (to asshole levels) -phobic of those statuses ends up hitting similar choices; they have mimetic load bound in with those offensive (and problematic, and taboo) words, and decoupling it from the word or finding a not awful equivalent can be hard work.
no subject
on 2014-09-12 11:50 am (UTC)asshole exctinction event imminent?
on 2014-09-12 01:29 pm (UTC)This suggests to me that the apparent recent uptick in harrassment of women in general may also be an extinction burst -- which seems plausible to me, as the recent uptick in women actually being able to talk about this stuff in public (despite the ghastly blowback) seems likely to be a thing that shifts the balance and deprives the bad habit (harrassment) of sufficient fuel to keep going.
Anyway, here's hoping, and let me know if there's anything I can do to help.