Egads!

I'm having a crap week.

But beyond that, or maybe it's a part of that, I'm kind of bothered by a video that's making the rounds on social media of a woman walking through New York silently and the men who comment on her looks. The video is getting a lot of flack for having only black and hispanic men shown which is a true criticism, but not to take away the message of the video and that's that women cannot be expected to be treated as true human beings now or ever. They are property and as far as the masculine gaze goes, will always be property.

It's a disturbing video.

There's the man who walks next to her for 5minutes. Talk about terrifying. The men who tell her to acknowledge them (because a man commenting on your looks deserves to be acknowledged). They look her over like she's a piece of meat.

There are men out there who defend these men. "How can you meet the woman of your dreams if they act all uppity and won't acknowledge you? Men are the ones putting themselves on the line there."

Whiny shitheels.

A woman walking down the street who doesn't know you and is living her life, isn't the woman of your dreams. She's a person in her own right, living her life and she deserves the respect of being left alone to do it. She doesn't owe you shit. (Same thing with the friend zone. If you're in the friend zone it means she thinks you're her friend. It doesn't mean you deserve a chance with her. And if you think you're in the friend zone and it's a bad thing, you're a lousy friend and probably a privledged asshole.)

I have had a stranger, in the middle of the day on a downtown street, grab my breasts. On a bus on the way to work a man took my hand and placed in on his crotch. I had a man in an elevator engage me in polite conversation and then end it by saying "you have nice tits".

Tell me again that a stranger might be my beloved if I just give him a chance to engage with me. No fucking way. 

This video makes me slightly ill. Because any one of those men can take it a step further. A woman never knows even when walking down a busy street if she's going to be safe. And these men prove again and again that she isn't.