I have a lot of female friends, and they are badass.
They aren’t macho, just solid people: smart, capable, courageous, very hardworking. Knowing them has been inspiring, and a consistent challenge to what I think about our world.
“Our” world may be a misnomer. Sure, we share it physically, the same buildings, bikes, and bars. But our personal experiences are radically different. This isn’t as simple as subjectivity, where “everyone sees the world differently.” There’s a collective experience that women share that I simply do not, at any time, at all.
Any given day finds me in my element. I can walk from outer Congress to Veranda Street and, staying on the sidewalk, not even worry about cars. Stores and bars are open to me. I’m only uncomfortable in the Old Port when the bars are emptying, and someone may see my skinny frame as an easy target. If people stare at me, it’s because my punk-rock costume is asking for it. Blue jeans and a hoodie would make me another anonymous white male.
Women find anonymity impossible. No matter what they do, they’re going to be seen as sex objects, open targets. Many women I know leave the house prepared for war: pepper spray; quicknives; a prominent, accessible claw hammer. And these are just in case of actual attack. There’s a constant stream of lower-key aggression — taunts, comments, casual requests for sex — that nothing seems to stop. Each day is speckled with this treatment, reminding women just what their world is.
I remind them of that world too. I’m nice, quiet, keep to myself, and act respectfully — all the good, indignant excuses for why I should be off the hook, just another dude out walking. That’s the catch: I am just another dude, especially at first glance. Like it or not, I represent something threatening. Based on everyday experience, women have no reason to trust me at all.
It hurts to even write that; my ego wants its innocence back. I had tossed catcalls into the convenient “some asshole” department. Sex requests came from an occasional crazy or drunk. But no, these are constants. The woman I live with was propositioned six times in the course of a trip to the corner store. When you consider that frequency, mistrust is perfectly understandable. It may not feel “fair” on my end — I’m not like that, right? — but it certainly makes sense given the numbers.
You have to respect those numbers. More than that, you have to take them on faith. For men there’s literally no way to know better.
This is a challenge to everything we take for granted, from sitting on the front porch to city planning and the legislature. Gender bias isn’t news, but our culture has pigeonholed it as “feminism” or meaningless criticism. When it’s written off, all parties involved miss the point: this bias isn’t abstract. It’s not just censorship or permission but a daily, hostile reality for more than half the population.
I know some of that population, women who talk frankly about their lives without worrying what I might think. They have no reason to. If I feel uncomfortable, it’s a sort of empathy. We’re never just what we think we are. Women are reminded of this every day, and it makes them all the stronger.
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Clayton Cameron: winds.up@gmail.com
