Someone I was with got catcalled. I happened to be walking behind that person, so I gave the catcaller a look that said “Die!” A few steps later, I wasn’t satisfied so I turned around and marched back to the “man”.
Why did you say that to her? Do you know her?
No.
Even if you knew her, you shouldn’t be doing that.
But I just called her “beh beh”.
Is she your beh beh?
No.
Don’t do that again. The next person you do that to might kick you in the balls. You can get arrested for what you did.
Sorry.
The guy was lucky I didn’t have my pepper spray. But if I pepper sprayed him, I would probably have gotten arrested. Such is life for the female species.
I’m not playing the victim here. I just wish we could do something more than angrily tell them off, which, for these predators, would just turn into a story they tell about how they got screamed at by a crazy lady for no reason.
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Last year, I was verbally molested by a security guard at an EastWest Bank branch. I was sweaty because the walk to the bank was the exercise that I’d squeezed into that sunny day’s errand list. He asked me if it was hot outside, while feeling me up with his eyes and taunting me with his sticky smile. I said no. He kept up his stupid line of intrusive and pervy questioning. I kept trying to brush him off with one-word answers and not looking at him while I was filling out the bank form. He would not be discouraged.
I went to the teller and did what I was there for, left the branch, and walked fuming for a few minutes until I finally decided to go back to confront the guard. I asked him why he did it and how he would feel if someone else did it to him. He thought he was just being friendly. Well, if being his friend meant feeling violated, then no thanks. No woman needs that.
It was a quiet confrontation because it was a place of business, something that didn’t cross his mind while he was harassing his customer. He was supposed to be the one doing the protecting, not someone we’d need protection from. As a representative of the bank, his basest obligation, if he wasn’t going to do his primary job of providing a safe environment, was to show some professionalism.
I went to the teller from earlier and asked for the manager. I got the assistant manager because the boss wasn’t in that day. I was informed that they use a third-party provider for their guards and that their previous guard was already reassigned. He also harassed another customer, but out in the parking lot, so the bank was limited in the action it could take to help the customer that time. Not that they did much for me. The guard was still there when I visited a few months later, smiling his smug smile, and one of his colleagues even shouted that his best friend was there, in reference to me. So again, the criminal wins and he and his friends get to make fun of the victim.
And I end up with a higher heart rate and zero justice.
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