Hello again, Reader.
I was planning a lovely post about embroidery stitches for today, but something has been weighing on my mind and gnawing at me, so the stitches are going to have to wait. Here’s the deal.
I was out for a walk yesterday with my boyfriend, on our way to dinner. We happened to walk past a group of four men, who seemed to be in their early twenties to me, but I didn’t stop to fact-check, so I’m not certain. As we overtook them, they hurled insults and slurs my way. I was startled and shaken. I have come to expect behaviour like that when I am alone or with other women, but never when I am with a man. That alone is a sad, and frankly abominable, state of affairs.
Even worse, Reader, was my reaction to this street harassment. I immediately glanced down to check what I was wearing.
I’m still deeply ashamed about this. No matter how much I decry it, I have bought into the idea that the clothes I put on my body invite particular responses from men, who are apparently unable to control themselves or their actions. According to this notion, the wretched behaviour I experienced is not men’s fault: it is my fault for wearing clothes that would entice or excite their brutish, animalistic natures.
This is called victim-blaming, and I’ve been seeing it discussed a lot recently. One article that caught my attention recently recounted the details of a case in which a young woman was ejected from her high school classroom, sent to the principal’s office, and then sent home, missing a day’s worth of education, because (wait for it)… her collarbones were showing. I’ll repeat that. Collar. Bones.
So shocking!
What’s worse is that the reason given in her school’s handbook for why collarbones are so inappropriate for the classroom is that they would be a distraction for male students.
There are several problems with this line of thinking. First of all, it puts the responsibility for any kind of aggression or violence towards women, big or small, on women. That logic doesn’t work in other situations: if you get mugged, it’s your fault, because you were carrying something. If your home is broken into, it’s your fault, because you have a house. If someone keys your car, it’s your fault, because you had a car to key in the first place. We don’t say these things to victims of theft or vandalism. We do say these things to women who get harassed, verbally or otherwise.
Secondly, it’s a fallacy that women who dress is an ‘appropriate’ way don’t receive aggression. Women in areas where dress is state-mandated and covers either all or most of their bodies still experience harassment from men.(Read more about it here.) Besides, what is ‘appropriate’, anyway? Some people would define what I was wearing last night as down-right prudish, while others would insist that because my wrists, ankles, hair, and face were exposed, that I was nigh-on inviting obscenities from these men. There is no set definition of ‘appropriate dress’, which is why schools have to make up guidelines. Doesn’t it seem odd that they have to invent rules to support the ‘rules’ they want their students to adhere to? If these rules are real, and should be followed, why don’t they already exist?
Now, some of you might be saying, “We agree that the collar-bone thing is a step too far, and we’re sorry that a bad thing happened to you, because we know you, but what about all those other women, who go around with their low-cut tops and short skirts and see-through fabrics and high heels? Surely those women are asking for whatever they get?”
Well, Reader, that’s a big old NOPE. Let me tell you why. For starters, this kind of dialogue between women is actually a tool to distance ourselves from those women whom society deems deserving of aggression, so that we don’t get mixed up with them and suffer their same fate. We shame and bad-mouth each other as a means of distinguishing ourselves as morally-upright, superior women who are beyond reproach, and to delude ourselves into thinking that we are safe from aggression from men. What we are really doing is throwing each other under the proverbial bus, and perpetuating the myth upon which victim-blaming is based: namely, that victims of harassment crimes are in any way responsible for their suffering.
Furthermore, dressing in a way that is deemed ‘sexy’ seems to have very little effect on whether or not a woman is harassed. All kinds of women get harassed, of all ages. I was harassed for the first time as a child of twelve. Harassment in any form isn’t about sex. It’s about power. The young men I passed on the sidewalk weren’t aiming to get to know me better, or even make a pass in the hopes that they’d get lucky. (We can be certain of this by asking ourselves one simple question: of all the couples you have ever known, how many of them met via street harassment?) They were showing off in front of each other, bigging up their own egos by making someone else (namely me) feel small. Similarly, men who cat-call by themselves aren’t trying to meet women. They are doing it for entertainment, for sport, to pass the time, and to make themselves feel good by asserting dominance over others.
All of this nonsense doesn’t put men in a very good light, does it? It makes them seem beastly, boorish, crass, insecure, immature, vulgar, and just plain rude. HIgh school boys, according to many dress-codes, are half-witted, animalistic brutes, unable to control their hormonal urges, and utterly enslaved by their bodies. There’s a name for this: it’s called toxic masculinity. Patriarchy doesn’t just have an impact on women. It also affects the way in which men experience life, and a lot of the time, not in a good way. From a young age, men are told that they have to be powerful, strong, aggressive, sexually virile, tough, insensitive, and unemotional to ‘count’ as a real man. Their positions as the dominant gender in our society balances on whether or not they can perform this role, and keep up the masquerade of toxic masculinity. We see examples of it all the time, but one of the most prevalent, and most dangerous, is in interactions with women. The young men who shouted at me were displaying dominance over me for the benefit of their friends, to show each other how masculine and powerful they are. This is the technique of the bully: to mask the feeling of insecurity, or to override it, they instill insecurity in others through aggression. But that’s just the problem. The aggression masks or overrides the feeling, but doesn’t deal with it, or make it go away. Toxic masculinity is bad for women and men.
Warning: may contain toxic masculinity.
So, long story short: my clothes, my shoes, my hair, my appearance, DO NOT invite aggression or harassment under any circumstance. As such, I will wear whatever I like, and enjoy wearing clothes that make me happy. I’m wearing them for me.
Also, a note to the distasteful ‘gentlemen’ who hollered unspeakable things at me:
The only kind of acceptable cat-calling is when you are actually calling a cat. Even then, the cat will be unlikely to listen to you, because it is a cat. I am not a cat, but, you will be amazed to learn, I am also not listening to you.
So stop it.
Until next time, Reader.
Yours,
Cotton Jenny
cottonjennyfabrics 