Me too, duh, but also, I shouldn’t have to say “me too.” Didn’t we establish this with #YesAllWomen?
One time, several years ago, back in NY, I was waiting to meet Ross in the DSW by Penn Station when I felt a hand grab my ass. I whipped around, and it turned out to be my boyfriend standing there. He saw the look on my face and said, “I’m so sorry, I’m never doing that again.” It took a long time for the adrenaline to unflood my body. A gesture that was playful in our kitchen triggered my fight-or-flight response out in the world.
This shit lives in our bones. People say that girls grow up faster, maybe that’s because we start being sexualized before we’re even sexual beings. Try to imagine having grown men hit on you when you are eleven years old, still trying to learn how to put on makeup and maybe get your crush to notice you. We’re taught that we’re supposed to want male attention, so imagine how confusing it is when the first male attention we get is from a middle-aged man leaning out of a car.
It’s easy to be shocked by all of the rich, influential, famous celebrities who still somehow felt powerless to stop HW, who were probably hoping someone else would. But then I think, every time I’ve ever been street harassed in my life, not once did anyone ever step in and yell at the guy to stop. (Most of the time I yell back myself now.) Do other guys even see it happening? Do I, when it happens to other people?
That’s the beginning of the continuum of shit we face.