As it turns out it doesn’t matter what I do or don’t being “good” is irrelevant, it doesn’t do me any favours. It’s pointless.
It’s funny how whistling became associated with leery men. Last month I passed some work men in the street. It was a hella cold day and I was out with my baby. I got catcalled. Now I’m one of those women that doesn’t see it as a compliment and would rather rip off my stiletto and ram it in your eye for thinking I have to appreciate you whistling and yelling “hey sexy” at me. Although I have a kid now so I cannot be getting arrested for assault, maybe I’ll just report you to your seniors or something. To be honest I would just love to have a chat with you and talk. I would love to be able to ask if you woke up that morning and thought “wow what nice crisp winters day to harass a person!” or was it an act of spontaneity? I wish I hadn’t been so scared of you guys, even in broad daylight with the general public watching because then maybe I would have said what I wanted to. I would have asked you if it makes you feel big and manly wolf whistling and yelling at a woman probably the same age as your sisters, while she was accompanied by a child most likely the same age as yours. Is that the kind of behavior that you think your mother would be proud of you for? Did your father teach you to be a fucking creep? Have you learnt nothing in the last fucking year? Have you lived under a fucking rock? Do you think the company you work for would want to be associated with that kind of behavior in the current social climate? Is “sucking your own dick out loud” (a line I have stolen from the word warrior that is Andrea Gibson) really worth losing your your job and livelihood over? Are you so desperate to tell me how I make you feel that you’re willing to bet your next pay check on me wanting to fucking hear it? The little diamonds of caramel skin that you could barely see through my fish nets really evoked that much of a reaction to you that you’re willing to go hungry because you’re so full from looking at my legs? Absolutely pathetic. How being so weak can make you feel so big I will never understand. If I hadn’t been scared I would had told you that I have just mentally added you to the list of men that I have come into contact with who think that I am an object for them to treat with little respect and no regard for my status as a person. Maybe it would have interested them to know that the lists included men who decided my child body was theirs to harm when I was wearing pyjamas, or my underaged body was theirs to touch without consent when they should have been teaching me how to pray and was covered from head to toe save from my hands and face, old men who knowing my very young age still beeped at me in the street when I was in skinny jeans and an Elmo top, the truck drivers who even though I was clearly dressed in school uniform casually asked if they could pay me for sexual favours. I wonder if I had told them that my body’s measurements are that of an average 11-year-old boys they would have kept their mouth shut, probably not; I mean... maybe that’s what they liked?I’m going to say this once: DO NOT FUCKING YELL OR WHISTLE AT ME. I am not interested in you or your pathetic, cliched, out dated, offensive attempt at complimenting me. I’d like to take a moment to thank all the people I see when I go out who mind their own fucking business and bodies. Who do not yell at me, who do not think I am obliged to know how they feel about me. The people who even thought I may be something they find attractive, they managed to contain themselves because let’s face it it’s not fucking difficult. The folks that understand their reaction to me isn’t something I am interested in. My body and clothes are not me paying it forward for their words. Thank you all for being the majority and showing people that you can just live your life without being a fucking creep.Thank you to each stranger who treats me with respect and dignity on a day-to day-basis. Each one of you while you shouldn’t be congratulated for being a decent human being I would like you to know that it does not go unnoticed, for me having the knowledge that the general public is decent means I feel safe going about my day, I feel comfortable in the spaces we share. You all harbor an environmental that makes me feel able to wear whatever and present however I please without the fear of judgment or for my safety. You outweigh the yelling Neanderthals. Love,Monica xxx
