Not All Women

[ayun]

There used to be a dive-y bar on the outskirts of Central Square that I didn't like to walk past. It wasn't a dive bar like the ones my friends and I liked, where the diviness was sort of cultivated and semi-ironic. It was a serious dive, for serious drinkers, and every time I passed it one of the patrons would say something to me that I didn't

Comments

[pyrric]

First of all, you're definitely not ugly. Second of all, plenty of "ugly" women (by this I mean women who don't fit into stereotypical definitions of what is attractive) get harassed every day.

Getting harassed never makes me feel pretty. It makes me feel like that one sad, sickly little wildebeest that the lions know might not taste very good but will be so easy to take down.

[ayun]

Yeah, I know enough to know that sometimes being outside beauty norms (especially when it comes to weight) can cause more vicious treatment. And I know that at least from the neck down, I basically fit into the box I am supposed to fit into.

I want to know what my Thing is so that I can manufacture it in mass quantities and give it away for free.

[ayun]

Definitely the hair has made a difference, but it basically made men nicer to me across the board, which will never stop being weird (and funny).

[amadea]

Yeah, I almost never get hassled either (despite having a very stereotypically feminine and easy sexualizeable appearance and body type) and I've come to wonder why, given that it seems to happen a lot to a lot of other people (who certainly don't seem to be doing anything to encourage it). Sometimes I wonder if it's a class thing, the same way I wonder about that when people think I have a British accent.

ha, this is the best use for this userpic

[ayun]

Interesting theory. What do you think are the visible signifiers that might be read for class? Clothes?

(That may sound like a dumb question, but consider this: I worked with a woman for over a year without realizing she was married, even though she wears a pretty hefty wedding ring. I'm so bad at stuff like that.)

[amadea]

I think it's a little bit clothes but maybe more body posture and something in facial expression, like the moments at which I do and do not make eye contact? I really don't know, it's kind of a wild guess. As perihelion noted below, I've been thinking a lot about privilege. Strangers tend to treat me with respect, even when they initiate conversation with me, and I know that I spent my childhood and was educated in some pretty elite settings (I was a disaster at the girl's private school in Manhattan, but I might have picked up at least some social behaviors) so I wonder if the two are related.

[ayun]

So what's funny is that even though my knee-jerk impulse is to frame EVERYTHING in terms of class, it didn't even occur to me that it might be in play.

(Though I have read some arguments suggesting that the social class of the would-be harasser is relevant - that cat-calling is a class-marked behavior, which I guess makes sense. The ur-cliche is construction workers, after all...)

[atalanta]

For me it is completely dependent on how I dress, so I would bet that has a lot to do with your experience. Also hair color is freaky that way, like a switch that turns on or off more harassment. It was so unnerving to (briefly, long ago) be blonde and instantly get constant harassment or other weird comments.

[amadea]

I remember a friend who (briefly!) had her hair dyed blonde was also really, really struck by this experience.

[ayun]

Oh, dude, that reminds me of the time I was walking home from a club past Sammy, this homeless 1369 regular who I've been interacting with for more than a decade. At the time I would pass him on the street at least twice a day, but never talked to him (because he's annoying). He basically ignored me too.

When I had a short skirt and giant shoes and makeup on, though, he saw me and said "Heeeeyyyyy, do I know you?"

[_perihelion_]

we’ve all been thinking about privilege a lot lately. does that mean we are privileged? do only the privilege have the privilege to spend time thinking about their privilege? I suspect it’s rather more complicated than that.

[ayun]

I know for a fact I'm privileged, in a number of ways, though when I used the word in the post I was thinking more little-p privilege, not like full-on Invisible Knapsack, Society Assigns Value To These Qualities privilege.

The idea of privilege (and, trailing behind it, intersectionality) has been working its way out from academia for some time now, but does seem to be common currency for liberal types at least. I first read the Peggy McIntosh essay sometime around 2001 or 2002, but it was published long before that. I think it's a useful prod to get people to strive for a more empathetic way of viewing the world.

[badriyaz]

I think there's a combination of class factors and how likely you seem to react to attention that figures into harassment, though sometimes they can backfire. I.e., seeming to be of a higher social class and like you have the confidence not to respond could be taken as a challenge, which is how I would interpret the bar people. But generally I think if you look confident and like you own your space, the sort of men who are likely to harass women won't bother with you, because they aren't going to get the response they want, and you might call the cops. To use pyrric's metaphor, you come across as the strong healthy wildebeest that can kick a crocodile in the chops.

The whole being yelled at to smile thing, I think is something else entirely but I'm not sure what.