Are We All Schrodinger’s Women?

Simultaneously perceived as goddess and garbage based on our response to an entitled man’s advances.

We all know that catcalls of Hey, beautiful, can turn into Didn’t like you anyway, in a heartbeat, if we choose to ignore the attention from an entitled man; their opinions of us can turn on a knife-edge if we don’t give them what they want. Smile honey, it might never happen — it’s a coded threat that all women recognize for what it is. What we really hear is — act compliant and look pretty, or I’m gonna turn nasty.

We all exist in superposition like Schrodinger’s woman; simultaneously perceived as a goddess or garbage depending on our response to a man’s advances.

I noticed an article by Jessica Wildfire that gained a lot of attention recently. It was penned in response to Sarah Everard’s murder and stirred up a lot of emotions. She detailed a harrowing story of a woman’s experience of harassment and unwanted pursuit by a man during a plane journey.

As Jessica said, women “…want to be left alone, just like men get to be left alone when they’re going about their day.” We just want to be free from harassment and fear.

I wrote a comment in praise and agreement with what Jessica was saying, that this is every woman’s experience; the reality and fear of being a woman in a world where we are still objectified, coveted, and treated as things rather than as people with our own agency and value, equal to that of men.

I received a response to my comment from a man telling me that he promised me I would be sorry when I got my wish and the attention stopped when I hit my 40s.

The fact that I’m 50 and this is still happening is not the outrageous or unsettling thing. It’s that it happens all day, every day, and to every woman.

Women and girls of all ages are sexually harassed and assaulted when they are just trying to go about their business.

It is no wonder that we are afraid; we should be very afraid at the kind of backlash that ensues when any woman dares to call it out.

Denial doesn’t make it go away

Shortly after reading Jessica’s article, I discovered one by Julie Cohen along the same theme. Her experience of harassment happened on a train.

She ended up suspending comments on her story because of the volume of written abuse she received in response.

We have all experienced this abuse in real life as well as online, otherwise this kind of article wouldn’t be so popular. It resonates so deeply and widely because it is every woman’s lived experience. We all come out in support of and in empathy with the kind of emotive story Julie and Jessica presented.

I am sick and tired of the toleration and denial of this behavior in society; of being told by men that nobody they know behaves like that. The kind of men who behave like that are everywhere, in every community, in every group of friends. It’s just been accepted for so long that it’s almost invisible to men.

I received that very same response from a work colleague in relation to Sarah Everard’s murder. The following outcry and outpouring of emotion understandably ran very high and was suppressed by the police in the UK.

But my colleague was outraged at my assertion that this was every woman’s experience, being in fear for our lives from men. His denial was quick to disprove as I pointed out stories he had related to me about his friends being disrespectful and lecherous, and stalking women.

It is an issue relevant to #allwomen and #allmen and the denial of the extent of the problem is unhelpful and needs to stop.

Obviously, some men are not attracted to women and therefore don’t give them that kind of creepy, aggressive and harassing attention. But they still share the responsibility to call out those who do. We all share that responsibility but it is more powerful and holds more sway coming from men — so do it, guys.

If you are passive you are part of the problem

It is #allmen responsible for this behavior, as per Julie Cohen’s article. If you don’t want it to be every woman’s perception that all men are the problem then engage your brains, listen to what most women are saying and take an active part in changing it. If you are passive you are part of the problem.

I challenge any woman to tell me that they have not been on the receiving end of some male attention in public that made them feel uncomfortable or fearful. Perhaps they do exist; they must be like unicorns in their rarity. I certainly don’t know any woman in my circle of friends who fits into that category.

But some women will also be in denial of how this behavior impacts them, and they are also contributing to the problem.

I don’t want to alienate men from the conversation; they are welcome to actively participate and shed light on a way forward.

But if you do come out with some aggressive or minimizing denial you will simply be proving my point that men do not like being called out on their entitlement, their privilege or their shoddy behavior to #allwomenandgirls.

As a general rule of thumb you should ask yourself, would I be happy if someone (a man) behaved like this to my daughter/wife/girlfriend/mother? If the answer is no, DON’T DO IT to some woman you see on the street/plane/bar/wherever.

Enough is enough

There is one group of young women who have had enough and are doing something about it. This deserves a separate article dedicated to the movement that they are spearheading. Their campaign is called OurStreetsNow and they are petitioning the UK government to have street harassment made illegal in this country.

This is not the kind of attention my commenter was talking about when he began his passive-aggressive comment with “I’m sorry that you feel so intimidated by someone noticing and talking to you.”

That is active belittling and minimizing, a technique that most abusers use to make their victim feel or sound as if they are making a fuss about nothing.

This article is not directed at the guys who appreciate and like women, or flirt with and chat-up women. It’s aimed at the kind of guy who thinks street harassment is okay; the kind of creep I have encountered in online dating experiences. The kind of guy who says on his dating profile that the sign of a good date is “when the kicking and screaming stops.” This is for him and everyone like him. And all the controlling, entitled guys who think a woman owes them something because they are attracted to her.

We can all actually live as equals, giving each other the freedom to exist as a person and not an object of unwanted attention. Women should be allowed to go about their daily lives free from fear of harassment and assault; to feel safe.

Women are neither garbage nor goddesses — we are human beings, deserving of equal respect and consideration as men.

As writer and feminist Marie Shear famously said, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” Let’s embrace that notion today.

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