#cat-calling

**Trigger warning: rape, necrophilia**

Spooky season is here, and I just wanted to send you a friendly reminder if you go to haunted houses or other such attractions.

The people who work at these places are indeed human. We are not mannequins or robots. We have ears and eyes and feelings, and we can hear you when you make violent or lewd comments while we do our job.

I work at a haunted house every October. I have heard disgusting things. One night I played a “patient” in a “surgery gone wrong” so I was stretched out on a medical bed covered in blood and gore. I would alternate playing dead and actually acting because screaming constantly for 5 hours really takes your voice away. At times I played dead, people thought it gave them the right to say the most vile things I’ve ever heard.

Guy #1: “She’s dead, right?”

My coworker, playing the doctor: “Yes.”

Guy #1: “That means she’s easier to f**k!”

I was absolutely horrified. It was clear that I am real and not a mannequin, but even if I were, did you just admit to necrophilia and rape in front of all these people? Why would you say that to a person?

Later, my coworker pretended to cut off my fingers and legs, etc. Someone yelled that he should “cut off my t*ts!”

Il était une fois au pays des étudiants un jeune fille de 19ans qui rentrait à vélo de la fac en robe et talon (je vous assure que oui oui c'est faisable les doigts dans le nez (enfin c'est mieux de les garder sur le guidon mais je m'éloigne du sujet...)).

Donc voilà toute cette longue journée, au cours de ces quelques trajets, elle remarque que son destrier - son beau vélo orange - fait un bruit plus que suspect. Alors à plusieurs reprises elle s'arrête et cherche la source de ce bruit plutôt agaçant qui fait retourner les passants ! Sans succès.

Quand le soir enfin elle arrive chez elle, elle tente à nouveau de voir d'où vient le problème. Et là un preux chevalier vient l'aider (bon il a pas trouvé non plus, mais là n'est pas l'intérêt de cette histoire). Alors la jeune fille le remercie et s'extasie de trouver encore de gentils garçons au pays des étudiants. Puis elle rentre pensive chez elle et croise un autre de ces voisins. Celui-ci lui avait demandé son numéro un jour elle portait aussi une robe ! Et là ça fait tilt... Est-ce que le facteur «porter une robe» est déterminant dans le fait qu'on l'aborde ?

Et bien la réponse est fucking yes ! Les quelques fois où un garçon m'a parlé (oui parce que je suis la jeune fille en question) ces derniers temps je portais une robe ! Alors que 90% du temps je suis en pantalon donc ça fait quand même une grosse coïncidence 🤔

Tout ça dire que j'ai très envie qu'on mène une étude sociologique sur le sujet les filles ! Si vous pouviez partager ce post et me dire si pour vous aussi le fait de porter une robe/jupe change quelque chose dans le comportement des gars autour de vous 😊

Pour conclure, vive le preux chevalier qui a essayé de l'aider tout à l'heure ! Est-ce que son comportement a été influencé par le fait que je ressemblais plus à une demoiselle en détresse parce que j'étais en robe, on ne le saura jamais. En tout cas moi j'ai trouvé ça chouette 😍 et puis ça nous chance du slut-shaming!

Someone felt the need to roll down the window of their passenger seat and yell that out at a total stranger (me) as I was walking down the street today in some short shorts because Oregon is currently sharing a temperature with the surface of the sun.

I don’t know what that means. Was it a compliment? Do my thighs look extra crispy or original recipe? Seasoned, perhaps, with a top-secret blend of herbs and spices? I don’t know. But my cat-caller had no answer when I yelled back, “Can I have a further explanation, please?”

When I was younger I didn’t believe in feminism.

And you know why? It wasn’t because I didn’t need it, as some people say. I desperately needed it. No, it was because the culture in which I lived was so saturated with sexism that I didn’t even realize it wasn’t normal or good.

I rewatched one of my old favorite movies lately, from the early 2000s, and I almost cried as I realized, in retrospect, how sexist it was. Because when I was younger I didn’t see anything wrong with cheerleaders being portrayed as boy-crazy and ditzy and I cheered on the men who shamed them for the way they dressed.

And, I don’t know. I think I just want guys to understand.

I’m friends with a lot of really good guys. Most of them would probably call themselves feminists, too.

But you know what?

It was a little upsetting when I told one of my best friends about guys yelling at me and my friends to take our clothes off as they saw us go by on the river, and my friend’s response was “Well, fishing can get boring.” He was kidding, and didn’t understand why I got so upset…but that’s because, no matter how good a person he is, as a man, he has a privilege that makes him unable to understand why it’s not funny.

It’s upsetting that my little brother’s best friend casually commented that he thought his own sister was probably faking the severity of her menstrual cramps.

It’s upsetting that my best friend’s fiancé doesn’t understand why a sexually explicit and derogatory song (even when it’s satirical) would make us uncomfortable.

It’s just upsetting.

It’s upsetting that every time I see a man stranded by the side of the road and want to stop to help him, I have to remind myself that it’s probably not safe, as a woman, to do so.

It’s upsetting that I’m one of the few among my friends who hasn’t been raped or sexually assaulted in some way.

And when I was younger, I didn’t get any of this. I accepted it all as normal.

I understand it now. I’m a feminist now.

And I need feminism because I don’t want any more little girls to grow up thinking that it’s normal for boys to try to lift up her skirt; to just be embarrassed and not tell an adult. I don’t want to someday have a daughter who thinks she’s not pretty if she’s not wolf-whistled on the street, and yet feels uncomfortable or even frightened when she is.