It's a man's world

I want to preface this by saying how grateful I am for an amazing and supportive husband. I love him for the man that he is and is aspiring to be.

I felt this even more last night as he stood there with me in the rain for over an hour as I talked with two girlfriends after our hockey game. And then my appreciation for him grew even more as I started reading tweets that were part of an ongoing, organic and viral #YesAllWomen social media campaign.

At first I sympathized with many of these women then I realized, I could empathize.

For as long as I can remember, inequality has bothered me. I was fortunate to be pretty good at sports growing up and a lot of the time, played right along with the boys. I was even better than many of them. I never felt that I was incapable of doing something because I was just a girl.

As much as I blurred the lines in my mind between what girls could do and what boys could do, I received constant reminders from those around me that there really was a line between us.

Bless her heart, I recently found an old letter and accompanying pamphlet from my grandma. She was encouraging me to go to a course to learn to be a lady basically. Learn how to do your hair fancy and put makeup on and sit properly. I can’t believe there are still things like that. It wasn’t for me at the time and never will be. There’s a lot to value in womanhood but wasting countless hours on primping, to me, that’s not one of them.

That was a more innocuous example of how expectations for women are different than for men. I suppose a comparison for men would be a course to learn to open doors and go bulk up at the gym.

As harmless as that example was, there have been many more reminders that have been less than harmless. Even for a girl that never took to primping and preening and spent the majority of her life considering herself to be ‘one of the boys’.

I realized I had my own stories fitting for the #YesAllWomen campaign. Like when my neighborhood friend locked me in a room when we were kindergarten aged and told me I couldn’t leave until I touched his penis.

Or more recently, when I was accosted as I walked down the stairs, among a group of people, leaving a Skytrain station. A young man grabbed me, began kissing my neck and telling me we should hook up. The people exiting the train with me, and his ‘friend’, watched on and eventually almost everyone walked away.

I like to think I’m a tough cookie but instead of fighting back, I resorted to saying I needed to get home to my husband. As though the idea that he would be offending another man, not me, that would be a sufficient defence. It didn’t work.

The guy kept kissing my neck and telling me if my husband really loved me, he’d be there with me right then.

I had played out scenarios like this in my mind, sadly. What would I do if someone tried to rape me? I always thought I’d fight tooth and nail. Instead, I placated his ego and tried to get away as nicely as possible. I was less than 50 feet away from safety. If only I could get to my office where there was security and nobody could enter without a swipe badge. Including this creep.

Then my knight in shining armor stepped in. The friend who’d been idly watching on stepped in and told the guy to let me go. And he did. He immediately listened to his male counterpart but he still stood between me and the exit. The creep started ranting about how he’d moved here from the Middle East and was frustrated with how Canadian women were so prudish and wouldn’t give him the time of day. Like he was entitled to have every lustful whim fulfilled. Like women were only good for satisfying his needs.

In the middle of his rant, I ran. Fear washed over me. I hate being afraid. I hate feeling weak. I felt both. And in the midst of my fear and anger, I let him win. I didn’t go get security. I didn’t tell anyone until I got home to my husband. Who knows how far he went that night, or the next. Who knows whose life that creep ruined.

I’ll always regret not reporting him to someone. There’s a lot I regret from that night. And I hate it. I hate that this pitiful excuse for a man did that. I hate that men like him have created an aura of fear that us women have to sift through. Is it safe to walk on that side of the street? Should I get off the train now or wait until after that seedy looking character gets off? Should I acknowledge the catcalls because I read that if you look a man in the face, he’s less likely to rape you because you’ll be able to identify him?

Hate and fear. Anger and animosity. That’s what’s bred from creeps like that man at the Skytrain station. Or that loser in California. And sadly, it still feels like there’s not a lot we, as women, can do.

I can stop wearing makeup, wear baggy clothes, play sports, do a man’s job but at the end of the day, I’ll still be a woman. And that’s awesome. And sometimes, terrifying, at the same time.

Gentlemen, what I need, what your wife needs, what your mother needs, your sisters, aunts and female friends—what we all need from the men in and out of our lives—is your strength. The strength to stand up and tell your guy friends to shut up when they start degrading and demeaning women. Whether she’s on a pole or bus, she is a human and not an object. She has tits but she has feelings too. One day she might be your everything, that is if another man hasn’t made her feel like nothing first.