Re: “Feminism has put men on eggshells,” Mar. 6, 2013.
After reading an opinion piece about feminism in the Charlatan last week, I said one thing to myself: challenge the idea not the person. And that is something I will respectfully attempt to do here.
When I read the piece, I thought of my own personal experiences spanning only the past year.
Things like a customer saying, “Let me see what’s under your shirt,” and sliding $20 across the table while I was working my first – and last – ever coat check downtown.
And when, in January, a man whistled at me from his SUV on a dark side street in Chinatown. When I said, “Don’t whistle at me,” the man drove his SUV to the end of the street and turned around to drive by and catcall again.
It also reminded me of when a group of three men approached me on a busy street in Waterloo last summer. One of the men cornered me against a wall and said, “Hey baby,” and put his hands on me like I was his property.
It is the belief that men should not or are unable to stop themselves from complimenting a woman that contributes to rape culture and the unwanted sexual experiences of women everywhere, every day. It is this belief that is portrayed in Marc Yegani’s opinion piece.
One of my male, feminist friends said the following: “There are hundreds of ways of interacting with women that don’t involve making lurid or vaguely sexual comments. You could oh, I don’t know, engage her in conversation?”
Striking up a consensual conversation with a woman is different from blurting out “nice legs” or “hey baby.”
Spoiler alert: a woman can be approached on the merit of her intelligence as well, not as a mere object of physical affection.
One cannot rationally connect having trouble forming intimate relationships with not being able to make a pass at women for fear of being offensive.
Simply put, it is because sexual harassment is not OK, and will never be OK.
I shouldn’t have to turn up my headphones to ignore unwanted sexual advances on the street. I shouldn’t have to stare at the ground to ignore leering strangers. I sure shouldn’t have to worry about offending a man because I’m not interested in his comments on my appearance.
It’s both patronizing and wrong to assume that women are asking themselves where all the good men have gone. We have found them.
They are the men who respect us for our minds and bodies and make no attempt to trivialize or ignore our sexual experiences as women.
— Avery Zingel,
third-year journalism and political science
