#non rebloggable because it got personal. couldn't help it

[laufire]

Sorry for sending this message twice but I was still groggy from my sleep meds when I sent the first message and I’m worried that I might have been incoherent. I love your response to that “neurotypical feminism post”. Like the way they positioned experiences with street harassment as some privileged thing only non-disabled women deal with was disgusting. I’m an autistic woman (I do identify as nonbinary but I’m afab and femme presenting) and while I’ve only experienced street harassment once that one time was extremely traumatic and I just can’t believe anyone would frame that as a form of privilege (or imply disabled women don’t experience harassment because what???)

Don't worry, it was perfectly coherent ^-^ (I'll reply to this one since you say some of the same, with additional information).

First of all, I'm sorry that happened to you. It can leave you feeling so furious and so powerless. That's what makes it so despicable to me.

That part of the post in particular was SO DAMN ENRAGING. If I cared to be generous I'd guess OP (or the bnf with the anxiety comment, for that matter) was saying something on the vein of, "we need to understand different women might experience different brands of misogyny, because women are different and misogyny has one (1) goal: screwing us all; and in order to get that, it adapts!"

But she used the term "hit on". That immediately put me on edge and I wasn't feeling too generous xDD

I've suffered various forms of street harassment in my life and the idea that not being on the receiving end of it could be a bad thing... gtfo of here lmao. Like I mentioned in that reply it's been a while since I've received the most "conventional" form (it hasn't saved me from the others!). But you know when it was that it happened last?

It was about three winters ago, right Before Covid TM. I had my unwashed hair all underneath a hat, baggy pants that are (and look!) over a decade old, and a bulky coat that goes down to my knees as I went to the grocery store for a snack. Oh, and get this: it was from the time my knee was really fucking me up. SO I WAS OUT WITH A FUCKING CANE, LOOKING LIKE A BALD BLACK BLOB WITH A STICK THAT VERY MUCH MADE ME "VISIBLY DISABLED". Did that stop the drunk 40+yo man from telling me exactly how he wanted to fuck me? Sure as fuck didn't. At least I had something at hand to beat him with if he'd decided to cross the line (+ I had pepper spray in my pocket. That purchase has given me a lot of peace of mind ngl).

I also remember the first time I was on the receiving end of street harassment. I was with two friends I stopped hanging out with not much later, so I must have been 9, 10yo at most. My friends were one year older than me, very blonde and very tall. My boobs had come early and they were not small. Apparently, these things meant these two 20yo guys from my hometown just HAD to follow us and comment on our bodies and just how bitchy all of us were for not meekly or graciously accepting their "compliments". The only reason I didn't leave this experience terrified is because of the circumstances (not being alone, small town where Someone Is Always Watching and you all know each other AND each other's family, which makes these men a tad more accountable than That Rando whistling at you in the city, ime).

Basically: street harassment is NOT ABOUT ATTRACTION. It's NOT a "compliment" about a woman's physical beauty. It's harassment. It's designed to terrorise you, plain and simple. Men will do it to children, like I was. They will do it to old women, to ugly women, to butch women, to Muslim women covered from head to toe... How you look can be the weapon used against you but it's not the point. They don't want to flirt with you or start a relationship with you or what have you. They want you scared and to "know your place". That's it.

This was never clearer to me than after covid's lockdown, btw. Here in Spain there was suddenly this fucking epidemic of harassment against women walking alone on the street, at any hour of the day. Masked, dressed plainly to do some basic errands, whatever. I guess confinement had left a lot of these men without the opportunity to terrorise women in this way and they were really itching for it rme (probably accompanied by a new progressive government implementing some laws they didn't like, I'm sure).

#non rebloggable because it got personal. couldn't help it #it FEELS personal ffs #talking to the void #street harassment mention #replies #daenerysthevampireslayerr