My Thoughts on Paper

Why do I need to be reminded?

Tonight I went to a monthly festival with a group of friends and was promptly reminded that I am a woman. We had no more left our meet up location, a good distance from the festival itself, only for the group of all women to be honked at and yelled at with a phrase that almost sounded like a "funny" threat. I knew that nothing would come of it, especially when there are 20 women walking together, but it annoyed me that this car of men suddenly decided that they needed to remind us that we are in fact women and how they view us, which is similar to a belonging instead of the human beings we are.

The rest of the night went without a hitch until we were returning home.

I've walked this path nearly a thousand times in the time I've lived here, but tonight, because I was wearing a short, tight dress and walking with one other woman, a man decided to make it known that he viewed women as nothing more than a piece of meat for their consumption. In a place that I am supposed to feel at least semi safe, I was honked at, yelled at, and terrorized by engine revving. The yells echoed the vague statements from earlier in the evening, but again, I knew nothing would come of it.

Why do I need to be reminded that I am a woman? Am I not reminded every morning when I get dressed or every evening when I have to shower? And why do I have to put up with the way men treat others of my body? Why do they assume that a tight dress means that I want something to happen? Why do they think this harassment is okay? Is that how our society has been created? That women are just things for men to put on a shelf to admire and use as they please? In the words of a Disney princess, "I am not a prize to be won" and I never intend to be.