I Ain't Nobody's Victim

Here, hold my beer while I punch this guy.

John’s birthday was last Saturday, and since John is a diehard discophile and there was a record fair about an hour from where we live, we loaded up some Prince albums for him to trade, had coffee at the bar, and hit the road.

The record fair was staged inside a shopping mall. While John went bin diving for Blue Note records, I sat on a bench and read. I’m good like that. Very self-sufficient. It comes from being an only child. Then a man heaved himself onto my bench and started speaking to me in rapid-fire Italian. I looked up and was so horrified, I had to check an impulse to run.

He was maybe fifty, obese, and grossly disfigured. From his face hung the jowls of a bloodhound, fleshy, distended and swollen, and their weight pulled his eyes down like Edvard Munch’s The Scream, a human in the process of melting. I found myself desperately wanting to avert my gaze but also wanting to stare, if for no other reason than to suss out what condition he had. We are all products of our social conditioning; mine told me to train my focus on his eyes only and to pretend as though I didn’t notice his disfigurement.

But this man wasn’t there for a friendly chat. He was hitting on me. First, he tried to kiss my hand, which I pulled away, and then he asked for my phone number. I told him I spoke no Italian (always a handy default, even if this isn’t strictly true). Then I told him I was waiting for my husband.

I had my phone in my hand. Surreptitiously, I WhatsApp’d John.

Help, I wrote.

Next text, all caps: HELP.

If John had responded to my texts, I would had had a presumptive out. He would have come, and this odious bridge troll would have bolted guiltily into the nearest store.

But John was busy thumbing through records. He didn’t even felt the phone vibrate in his pocket. Meanwhile, I was caught in a terrible dilemma. If this man had been like any other man, I might have easily shut him down. How many times had I been forced to growl, “Walk away,” or here in Italy, “Andare via”? For more persistent suitors, I’ve tended to get downright confrontational. “If you don’t get away from me,” I hissed at one man in the grocery store, “I’m going to f***ing end you.”

This is what it’s like to be a woman. You are the hunted. On some level, you are always bristly and paranoid, even when you purposely dress in oversized don’t-look-at-me T-shirts and no makeup, like I do. You can still feel men’s eyes crawling all over your body.

If I told this man to get lost, I would have to carry the guilt of knowing I’d been “cruel” to a deformed person. I hate cruelty and go to great lengths to avoid inflicting it. And yet my previous attempts to deflect his unwanted attention by telling him I was married had fallen on deaf ears.

Italian men don’t care if you’re married. You might as well hand them a card with your hourly rates.

So I went stony. When he tried grabbing my hand again, I put some muscle into keeping it on my lap. I looked him in the face and didn’t flinch.

He finally got the message and waddled away, but the damage had been done. I spent the rest of the day in a state of smothering rage. I’d been forced between a rock and a hard place, my usual weapons of scorn and defiance blunted in my hands. Me, of all people, a woman John admiringly refers to as a “mean little motor scooter,” a woman who takes pride in being able to look out for herself, and here I was victimized by my own social conditioning. Be nice. Don’t say anything cruel to an afflicted person. Sexual harassment is just part of being female. Smile and keep moving.

I told John what happened. “Next time, just walk away,” he said. “I don’t care how ‘hurt’ he is. He was clearly using his deformity to make you feel sorry for him so he could hit on you.”

John is many things—kind, talented, brilliant—but he’s not a woman. Only a woman could understand how difficult that is to walk away when the party in question is pitifully grotesque. I was getting Elephant Man vibes, hearing John Hurt’s agonizing cry, “I am not an animal! I am a human being!” echoing inside my head.

The whole day, I had to carry that ickiness. Much of the next day, too. I felt empty, bleak, despairing. I was equally haunted by a text I’d received from a close friend vacationing in Italy who’d been forced to put up with hordes of American tourists covertly taking photos of her. She’s a beautiful woman, my friend, and dresses like the artist she is. How then did she deserve to be subjected to people’s sleazy curiosity? It threw her. Her health was affected. This wasn’t merely unwanted attention; it was assault.

But a woman’s body is not her own. A woman’s body is a territory of struggle, her actions open to the scrutiny of all. It is said, not without reason, that men act and women appear. How could it be otherwise? Women are programmed to reproduce the lessons of the marketplace. We are conditioned to find our worth within the male gaze.

Nobody knows that better than I do.

As I explain in this Cappuccino, “Being a woman means being seen, almost exclusively, through a sexual lens. If you’re not “hot,” in whatever way that’s defined at the moment, you have no real value. If you’re smart, you’re a boner-shrinker. If you’re a good communicator, you talk too much. If you’re emotional, you’re on your period. If you’re not interested in hooking up with some rando, you’re a ‘dyke.’

“Being a woman means having to use your body to buy love or even a few minutes’ attention. It means being constantly alert to any sign of danger. We hear about how many women are raped, not about how many men raped women. We hear about single mothers, not deadbeat dads. A mother who works is neglecting her children. A mother who stays home is a lazy cow. A woman who sleeps around is a whore. A woman who doesn’t is frigid. A woman who dates “up” is a gold digger. A woman over fifty is invisible.

“Men won’t ride pink bicycles. Being able to distinguish “beige” from “ecru”—or even knowing the word ecru—is grounds for suspicion. Homophobia is 99% misogyny and 1% paranoia about having a “hole back there” that’s unguarded and therefore vulnerable. ‘Run like a bitch/cry like a bitch/act like a bitch’ is embedded into our vernacular. The only time a woman isn’t talked over is when a guy is pretending to listen so he can get into her pants.”

If that sounds harsh, I mean it to be. Not all men are predatory, but enough are.

I was on the phone with my twenty-two-year-old daughter when she was at a gas station and some pervy old dude kept muttering suggestively to her. I wanted to reach through the phone and smash his face into the pavement. Same for a friend’s eighteen-year-old daughter. She was accosted in Los Angeles by some fifty-year-old altercocker in motorcycle leathers who aggressively insisted on “marrying” her.

This kind of predator/prey dynamic has consequences. Here are a few.

When a woman doesn’t have any real power, she resorts to manipulation. She becomes a coquette, a siren, luring a man to his doom. But make no mistake—even then, a woman’s body belongs to everybody but herself. Her vagina belongs to her husband, her opinion of herself belongs to men and other women, and her uterus belongs to the Supreme Court. A woman must remain smooth, wrinkleless, and above all, slim.

A successful man is considered a catch. A successful woman is considered a malevolent spinster with deep-seated psychological issues resulting from her refusal to prioritize motherhood over her career.

To be perfectly clear, I don’t blame men exclusively for this. They may have gotten the ball rolling, but we kept it in motion. No, I blame it on the way women are socialized, how they’re told to be pretty, to value their looks over their accomplishments, to not punch mall stalkers in the face, to feel as though they are nothing without the approval of others, specifically men. Even those of us who raised our daughters to reject patriarchal notions of female worth ran into a wall with social media. More than television, movies, even gaming, social media perpetuates the “Kardashian” ideal. Believe me, my daughter is just as looks conscious as I was at her age.

“The American woman is told she can do anything and then is knocked down the moment she proves it,” model Paulina Porizkova once wrote. I would like to add to that sentiment. The American woman isn’t just knocked down by men who feel threatened by her accomplishments; she’s knocked down by women, too. Women are sometimes the first to judge, especially women who feel as though a man’s attention is a thing to be competed for.

So, what needs to change?

1. Men, don’t hit on women. Get to know a woman, sure, but only if she’s made it abundantly clear she wants you to. Don’t grab her hand or any other part of her body. Don’t monologue. Try to see a woman as a person first and potential sexual partner second. I’m not suggesting you “friend zone” yourself, just make subtle adjustments in your perception.

2. Women, stop tearing down other women. It never ever makes you look good. Also, stop talking incessantly about losing weight. Either eat less and move more, or practice some real self-acceptance. But every time you run yourself down, you’re telling your daughters and other people’s daughters that being a certain size is important if you’re female. It’s not.

3. Men, if you want to help, speak up about a woman’s right to choose. Studies show the majority of you support abortion rights, but too few of you actually show that support in public. Post on social media—frequently and forcefully. Talk to other men. Men, even enlightened ones, listen to other men more than they do women. We need you in this fight, and we need you now.

4. Women, take a look at the advancements of the LGBTQ community in the last twenty-five years. They’ve been unrelenting in their efforts to achieve the same legal rights as heterosexuals. How? Unquestioning allegiance to the cause. Instead, women’s groups are splintering over ridiculous ideological differences, which undermines their political clout. Know what’s more important than hijabs, trans-rights (which I consider to be covered by the LGBTQ umbrella), or pregnant “people?” Women. Vote like you know that.

If some ogre accosts me again, I won’t get caught flat-footed. He could have leprosy, and I will tell him to shove off, even if it hurts his feelings. Even if I feel bad about it.

Ladies, remember: being accosted on the street is not a compliment, even if it sounds complimentary or is disguised as idle chit-chat. Don’t feel as though you have to smile sweetly and gently deflect it. You are perfectly within your rights to say, “Don’t talk to me,” or “Go away.” If he doesn’t, and you’re uncomfortable with confrontation, recruit help. Loud declarations such as, “This man is bothering me” really do the trick.

You are not a doll in a glass case, made to be looked at. You’re a woman with agency and power. The time to start acting like it is now.

You don’t need a white knight, but you will need a strong backhand. Don’t be afraid to use it.

Copyright © 2022 Stacey Eskelin

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