I literally cannot leave the house without being subjected to one or both of these things. I have unusual, striking features as well as red hair and a fit, muscular, hourglass figure- I have a distinctive look, and people tend to either find me extremely attractive or freakishly unattractive, with little middle ground. This I have no problem with, eye of the beholder and all that.

What I DO have a big problem with is the fact that men and teenage boys have no trouble telling me what they think of the way I look. It's either creepy leering of an unmistakably sexual sort or being called ugly or freak. Who asked you, you fucking asshole?

Don't get me wrong, I have no trouble defending myself verbally (or physically, if it came to that). Doesn't mean I'm not exhausted by it all.

I go about my day, minding my own business and I would never dream of subjecting anyone to the harrassment many women receive on a daily basis.

You want to fuck me? Fine. You don't? Also fine. I just don't want to hear about it, okay?

Women of babble, do you feel me on this? I'm just so tired of it.

This isn't all men, or even most men. It's just that there are enough assholes out there to never quite let me forget, even for a day, that I am female and my brain is judged secondary to my body. I am so angry. What gives them the right? Do they have mothers, sisters?

FUCK!

[ 19 May 2006: Message edited by: Tuppence ]

But I can understand how peeved it must make you, because on a somewhat related note, I've known people who think that if I'm friendly to them, it must mean I want to fuck them. Um, no, not necessarily! Or people who don't take the hint from extremely obvious body language or tone of voice that says, "I'm not interested!" and makes you spell it out in words of one or two syllables before they get off your case. I think that's on the same continuum of guys who feel like they just have to tell a perfect stranger that they wanna get laid, or that she's too ugly to fuck.

The only thing I've come up with to combat this is to think up witty comebacks (which I cannot come up with at the moment), and also to TRY to raise a son who would never think of treating a woman like this.

Sometimes I wonder if these men were raised in a positive household, and if they were, what happened?? Is male culture such that this is inevitable? Dear Goddess, I hope not.