Fragments

Been a man

When I was 7, and walking home from school (alone), an old man starting walking with me, just a few minutes from my house. I didn’t want him there, but I didn’t know how to tell him not to be. We arrived at my house, and my mum ran out from the front door and down the path, grabbing me. She saw us both at the front window and was worried. She said she “didn’t know who the hell he was”.

When I was 13, I used to catch a regular bus to and from school. My best friend used to catch it with me at the end of the school day, but she’d stay on an extra few stops as she lived in the next village from me. We used to say hello to the bus driver. One day, he wasnt driving the bus home, but when she got off her stop, he was waiting for her in his car at her stop. She asked him what he was doing there, and he told her “Im waiting for you”. She told me about it the next day. Neither of us knew what we could do about it, so we didn’t do anything.

When I was 25 I was sat on a train in a quiet carriage. A man, a similar age, came and sat opposite me, and spread out his legs (like all men do) so I was trapped. He starting talking to me. I pointed out that his stance was intimidating, that he was trapping me in. He said he had no idea, and moved his legs. Then he asked me out for a drink (I said no thankyou).

When I was 32, I was walking home from work, my university campus, to the train station, and a lad – walking with his two friends – shout “I can smell your vag” as he walks past me. I wonder if I misheard (though I know I didn’t) and I wondered what I could do about it (though I knew there was nothing). 

At the same workplace, at a similar time, I was in the reception area, signing a form, when my (male) boss came up behind me and grabbed my waist. I spun around and said, very loudly, “I can’t believe that you just did that!”. He started back sheepishly and walked off. I looked over at the witnesses, a row of 3 women who worked in admin. “I can’t believe he just did that” I said again, this time to them. They said nothing. Just shrugged. 

I could write more, and actually about much more serious incidents, involving those who were close to me, partners and family members, but it is too difficult. So I have decided to write about a few incidents that meant the least – that were the least harmful, that caused no obvious physical or psychological injury. The everyday stuff. 

What they have in common is that they all made me feel under threat, and all involved men, and none would have happened if I had been a man.  

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