Sex shout-out

"Hey girl! Girl! Girl!!"

Like most sane people, I don't appreciate being yelled at on the street by total strangers. About ten years ago, I was living in Boston (specifically, Allston). I had moved there in '95 with no job, knowing only one person - my longtime friend JoAnne. I was renting a small studio apartment on a side street off of Brighton Avenue. At the time, that area was a bit run-down, but fairly safe; it was mostly populated by college students, so it was very low crime. The neighborhood had a very active nightlife, and college students don't exactly follow a 9 to 5 schedule, so people were always out on the streets late into the night.

One weekend evening, I was going home after visiting JoAnne at her place on Commonwealth Avenue, which was only about a 5-minute walk from my place. Yes, I was walking alone at night. Dear readers, I won't take any flak about that; I was alert, but in no fear for my safety. If you know anything about violence against women, then you know that stranger on stranger attacks are extremely rare. The media would have you believe otherwise, but a woman is far more likely to be victimized by somebody she knows. The belief that women shouldn't be outdoors at night is harmful in that it a) keeps them in a constant state of fear that is unsupported by the facts; b) restricts their movements in ways not extended to men, which is sexist; c) places the blame for any stranger assaults that do happen on the victim, not the perpetrator (because she supposedly "should have known better" - I personally think that men should know better than to attack women); all of which d) distract attention from the very real problem of acquaintance and intimate partner violence, reinforcing sexism in our society. Not okay by me.

The soution, dear readers, is to be aware of your surroundings, and carry pepper spray in case of emergency. This advice would be well heeded by men, who are, in fact, twice as likely to be assaulted on the street as women. I was about two blocks from my apartment building when I noticed three guys standing on the corner talking loudly in a language that I didn't recognize. As I passed, a hush fell over them; then they started laughing and talking quickly, as if goading each other into doing something. I tightened my grip on my pepper spray, just in case.

"Hey girl! Girl! Girl!!" one of them shouted in a heavy accent. "Do you want to do it witt us?" His hairy little pals guffawed in approval. How gentlemanly.

I spun around. "No, I don't, so why don't you shut the fuck up," I spat. "I'm not a hooker just because I'm on a street corner, asshole." Amazingly, they all stopped laughing.

Somehow, I doubt that this dude would have shouted such things at me if Yours Truly had also been a dude. Readers, whenever I've complained to my male friends about street harrassment, too often I've heard that it's a "compliment", and that I should be happy to have been deemed worthy of male attention (even short, hairy and unwashed male attention, as in this case). "When you're older and your looks are gone, no one will say anything, and you'll miss it," I've been told.

That kind of logic springs from a black hole of lameness. Listen up, my bepenised readers; we women know that's total bullshit. Men don't make sexual suggestions to strange women to be complimentary; they do it to be intimidating. We know this because women don't do it to men - we'd be lambasted by our fellow citizens as crazed harpies if we did. This kind of "boys will be boys" behavior is a power play, one that I refuse to tolerate. That's why the Three Amigos shut their pieholes when I yelled back at them; they expected me to respond with fear, not anger.

It's called respect, people, and it should be extended to everybody. Let others, be they male or female, go about their business unhassled. Street shout-outs aimed at strangers is simply THOR (The Height of Rudeness).

Street Corner Dude hadn't deemed me worthy of respect. I was just "Girl" to him. To me, he was, and is, just "Asshole."