First Sign Of Dawn by Josiane Curtis

[redqueen]

I was in 4th grade the first time I remember being told by a man to smile. I was out to dinner with my mother and friends of hers, and I was in a bad mood because she’d forced me to wear a dress. I was an early and hardcore adopter of the silent treatment, and I refused to order food and sat tight-lipped at the table for the entire meal. (I was not always a joy to be around – I’ll admit.) After delivering the table’s entrees, the server, a middle-aged man, bent and whispered into my ear, “You’re a pretty girl, but you’d be a lot prettier if you smiled.”

...

Women are warned early in our lives not to walk alone late at night in the wrong parts of town. We are taught to grasp keys between our knuckles if we think we’re being followed, to never invite a man we don’t know back to a private location. We are taught to yell “fire” instead of “rape.” But this man, like the many who had told me to smile or cat called before him, made me feel violated in a public place, in broad daylight, in the midst of an activity that was supposed to make me feel strong. And what’s worse, in the days that followed, a number of the people I confided in not only made me question whether I was overreacting to his actions, but made me wonder whether I might have been responsible for them myself.

...

I think of my male loved ones, some of whom are the most kind, gentle human beings I could ever dream up. I try to imagine what it must feel like to know you might unintentionally cause fear simply by being male, through no fault of your own, through nothing you personally have ever done. The first thing to understand is that this fear is not an example of misandry; it is a byproduct of patriarchy. And although I can acknowledge how bad it must feel to be inherently feared simply for being male, it is still worse to be inherently afraid simply for being female.

...

One of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes is, “When you know better, you do better.” The scariest thing about the Isla Vista shooting, for me, is that I don’t really know if Elliot Rodger knew better. He was a member of a very active community of men who believe that a woman’s sole purpose in this world is to bend her body to a man’s will. Most women, and yes, most men know better than that. But to shrug and say, it’s a shame, but not all men are like this one, isn’t doing any better. Telling the stories is doing better. Listening to the stories is doing better. Continuing the conversation, beyond computers and in our communities, with elected officials, with our loved ones, and especially with our children, is doing better. Let’s start there.

http://thisrecording.com/today/2014/5/30/in-which-he-did-not-try-to-touch-me-again-after-that.html