Lemme holler at you!

I was eleven years old the first time I remember a male making me feel uncomfortable about being female. I used to wait at the bus stop at Gilman and San Pablo, and I remember a white pickup truck with three men in the cab stopped at a red light, and they all looked at me. They could probably see my skinny little girl legs because it was summer and I was wearing shorts. I remember putting on my toughest don't-fuck-with-me face. Sorry that I haven't been keeping track since then, but I'd like to start now. When men stare at you, yell at you, manage to "bump" into you even when there's plenty of room, strike up a conversation with you when you're reading and have ear phones in and clearly don't want to have a conversation, ask for your number, comment on your appearance, or suggest sexual escapades they'd like to pursue with you, they're letting you (and everyone else) know that men are allowed to think and say whatever they want about your body, and there's nothing you can do about it. At the end of the day, most of us lady-folk understand that responding to harassment almost always increases it. Better to be yelled at than groped; better to be groped than raped. Rape and rape culture is at the heart of harassment. There have been many times over the past 15 or so years since I've hit puberty (and even a few before then) when I wondered if I was about to get raped. I have the feeling that no matter how drunk, obnoxious, or aggressive I've been, no one has ever felt that their bodily integrity was threatened. But you know, all this talk about rape culture is such a downer. Let's just get to the good stuff.

Who: Some Dude In The Passenger Seat Of A Car
When: Saturday, January 19, 2013 9:30 pm
Where: Telegraph and 19th St, Downtown Oakland
What: While walking to a concert down a highly populated Telegraph Avenue, Some Dude In The Passenger Seat Of A Car yells at me: "Yo, lemme get yo purse! Lemme get yo purse! Hey, lemme get yo purse!" People pack heat in Oakland, so I figured this was not an appropriate time to talk back. I looked straight ahead and kept walking, to which Some Dude In The Passenger Seat Of A Car concluded: "Bitch."

Who: Tall, Dark Stranger At The Fox Theater Bar
When: Sunday, January 19, 2013 12:30 am
Where: Telegraph and 19th St, Downtown Oakland (but on the other side of the street this time)
What: After a concert, Lynn and I decided it would be better for both of us to walk to her car, and she could drive me to my car. No, I'm not some lazy girl with impractical heels on, we just didn't want to get raped. And when I say we decided, I mean we didn't even talk about it, we had already talked about where we had parked, so we just walked out together to the closer car. So we walk by the Fox Theater bar, and a Tall, Dark Stranger starts walking toward us saying "hey" aggressively, as if we left our lights on and he wants to tell us, or if we'd just told his mother to suck a bag of dicks, or if he saw two very petite ladies and thought that he'd be able to get some kind of sexual satisfaction out of at least one of them because they're probably too meek to say no. We both ignored him and kept walking. We both had pepper spray in our hands. Lynn suggested that only women should be allowed to own and carry guns.