What You Really Really Want by Jaclyn Friedman Read Free Book Online Page B

you’re not doing anything wrong.
    So why are there so many bad behaviors that get blamed on women’s sexuality? That’s a great question, and sometimes we have to recognize when and where it’s happening so we can understand that we’re not at fault, and how to redirect that blame so it lands where it belongs—which is on the perpetrators of the behaviors, not on us.
Street Harassment
    Say you wake up one morning feeling kinda sexy. Maybe you had a great sexual encounter the night before. Maybe your new
workout routine is giving you great energy. Maybe it’s spring and the warm air is making you feel tingly. So you go to your closet and put on something that suits your mood. Maybe it’s a little clingy, or swingy, or the fabric feels great. Maybe it shows off your shoulders or your legs or your cleavage.
    So, you’re walking down the street, feeling hot, having a great day, and suddenly you hear him. From a car, perhaps, or maybe just from across the street. He’s yelling gross comments at you, or making rude gestures. It could be anything from, “Nice tits, baby,” with accompanying hand gestures to illustrate what he’d like to do to them, to the vile thing my friend Chloe, age twenty-three, heard when she was walking down the street one day: “Damn, baby, I wanna put you in a cage!”
    If you asked this guy why he’s shouting at you, he’d probably tell you that (a) he meant it as a compliment, and (b) if you didn’t want the attention, you shouldn’t have dressed so sexy.
    â€œIf she’s a slut, you have to treat her like a slut” is what one young street harasser told reporter Joe Eaton at the Washington City Paper in a story on the phenomenon. 2 But street harassment isn’t your fault, no matter what you wear—and it has little to do with your wardrobe.
    As much as harassers want to claim their behavior is sexually motivated, the truth is, it’s really about power. When I get harassed on the street, it usually has less to do with what I’m wearing and more to do with how I’m feeling. Most of the time, creeps target me when I’m feeling tired or nervous or lost or distracted, not when I’m feeling confident and strong. It’s got nothing to do with what I’m wearing or how “good” I look. And I’m not alone. When Jezebel.com surveyed its readers about what
they were doing when they were harassed on the street, the three most popular answers by far were: minding my own business, wearing jeans, and having no makeup on. 3
    It’s important to recognize that however we feel about the harassment ourselves, it’s still not our fault. Some women, like twenty-six-year-old Becca, sometimes find themselves struggling with conflicted responses: “I have, at times, felt like it was simultaneously really affirming of my femininity, and really awful from a political standpoint.”
    There’s nothing wrong or surprising about that—of course all of us have been exposed to the myth that any male attention should be taken as a compliment, and that vulnerability is a valued feminine characteristic. None of these feelings mean you’ve “asked for it” or are “bringing it on yourself.”
    There’s a growing movement of women who recognize that street harassment isn’t our fault and are doing something about it. They’re reporting harassers online and to the authorities, snapping pictures with their cell phones, sometimes even confronting them in the moment. What all of these women have in common is that they are placing the blame where it belongs: not on their own behaviors, but on their harassers’. For their inspiring stories, and resources that you can use in your own life, check out ihollaback.org .
Couples Harassment
    If you walk down the street holding your female partner’s hand, or kiss her in public, or even just look “dykey”