Hollaback, Girl!

I hear it all the time and have said it myself:  “I have the right to walk down the street and not be whistled at by a complete stranger.”  And that’s true.  I agree with you as does Emily May, Executive Director of Hollaback!.   Hollaback! is an international movement to address sexual harassment that occurs in public space by using technology and social media.  (learn more here).  Check out this “Voices from the Field” video:

The thing that is not addressed in the video is why street harassment exists in the first place.  I feel like I’m taking a risk in suggesting this but I do think fighting street harassment includes educating some women on how to carry themselves.  If I walk to the bar wearing 5″ heels, a gold mini skirt, and a sheer black blouse without a bra, and a guy whistles at me, is that street harassment? Or is that a cause and effect kind of thing?  But even that doesn’t really get to the root of the problem in our culture.  There are so many other things like the objectification of women in advertising, for example, which not only shapes the way we, as women, look at ourselves, but also effects how men look at us…  More power to ya Emily May!  Street Harassment sounds like one tough deep-rooted nut to crack.

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She’s baaaaaack!

I haven’t written in awhile.  Mainly because I’ve become too good for all of you.  Jk, sheesh. Anyway, I logged in for the first time in over a year and found a post that I started writing but never finished.  Wow, I hope I’ve learned something since 2009…

You know when  you are walking straight toward someone and you don’t know if you should go left or right to get around them and you both try to go the same direction but then it get’s really awkward (especially if he’s cute) and someone makes a lame joke like, “let’s dance”?  Well, I managed to do that… with a truck.

“No big deal,” I thought, “I’ll just keep walking like nothing happened.”  But then the driver of the truck said something that I couldn’t understand.  Now, this all happened in the parking lot at work so while normally I would just smile and laugh a little like I know what the guy is talking about and move on, this time I went around to the driver side window to ask what the man said.  I mean, what if it was work related?  You never know.  And had I worked for a car dealership that moonlighted as a brothel, it might have been because what the man actually said was, “You would make a great hood ornament.”

What a bizarre thing to say!  At this point, I should have stuck with the ol’ courtesy laugh stand-by and left it at that, but nooooo.  Somehow, I opened my mouth and this came out: “Oh, you mean smashed up against your grill?” meaning literally, smashed up against the grill of his truck.  Talk about double entendre!  Ugg.  At least I made some truck driver’s day.

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