Miriam Rodero: vs Sexism

Something happened to me a few weeks ago. To be honest, it wasn’t anything special. In fact, it was really quite ordinary; something that happens on an everyday basis. It’s happened to me before. And it happens to all females. But this time it really made me think. This time, for some reason, it felt like something a bit out of the ordinary. Maybe because I realised that all the other times, it shouldn’t have felt normal. I shouldn’t have just accepted it as something that happens.

It was a Thursday evening, not very late, maybe around 7pm. I was with two friends that had come to visit me – one male, one female – and we were on our way to another friend’s house. We began hiking up the infamous travelator – that crossing/hill/walkway (who knows) which marks the transition from town to The Badlands, and which you probably will have only experienced if you are no longer a first year. Anyway, our arduous ascent up the travelator was suddenly made all the more unpleasant by a group of men behind us who took it upon themselves to catcall and shout generally vulgar remarks at us all the way up the travelator.

As anyone will tell you that has experienced something similar, it was uncomfortable, embarrassing, and even slightly distressing. And for days after, I couldn’t stop thinking about it; I couldn’t stop trying to work out why this incident had stood out for me from all the rest, or why it had made me so much more uneasy than the other times. Because unlike most of the other times it has happened to me, I wasn’t alone on this occasion. But maybe that’s exactly why I was so taken aback. The fact that that group of men found it acceptable to act in such a way towards a group of individuals – even in the presence of another male – shows how normalised sexist behaviour has become in our society.

When we finally reached the top of the seemingly never-ending travelator and had escaped the catcalling, one of my friends said, “Why didn’t we say anything? We should have said something.” Yes, we should have said something. But as anyone who has been in a comparable, or worse, situation knows, at the time it was impossible to say anything. The only thing I was thinking about was getting out of the situation as quickly as possible. Maybe that’s what struck me about the incident too. If I had been alone, I wouldn’t have thought twice about saying something. And even in a group, although we thought about it, we still found ourselves unable to say anything.

But the fact that we didn’t say anything shouldn’t be seen as a failure to act correctly on our part- there is no right or wrong way to react. It should instead be seen as proof of how standard and typical, yet at the same time intimidating, such behaviour is. The incident may not have been particularly outrageous or threatening in comparison to the experiences endured by other females on a daily basis. But that doesn’t mean it should be devalued. What truly matters is that it wasn’t right.

I’m not writing this thinking it’ll provide any original insight or solution to a problem which is prevalent in our society. But I’m writing it to show that this problem exists, that it is something that happens every day to all types of women, and that it shouldn’t be customary or expected. Perhaps simply raising and discussing such incidents is the first step to tackling this issue and removing it from a context in which it is viewed as “normal”.