I am a woman.
It is Women’s History Month.
Here is a small piece of my history.
As you read this, please keep in mind that I am a highly educated, white middle-aged woman with a long and accomplished career.
I have had two stalkers in my life —
one in high school and one in grad school.
I have been sexually harassed by a landlord.
I have been sexually harassed while swimming, by someone who was not my landlord.
I have been attacked in college while unloading groceries from my car.
I have had an adult student threaten to murder my unborn child because she got a B on her exam.
I have had a colleague who I barely know threaten to murder my husband out of jealousy.
I have had to use campus escort to get me safely to my dorm from the library.
I have had epithets and cat calls shouted at me while walking home across campus.
I have heard words used to represent my body parts screamed at me as insults, in an effort to tear me down.
I have watched these same words make millions of dollars as song lyrics that denigrate members of my sex.
I have had pervy old men ask to photograph me for a “magazine,” and in my youthful innocence, I believed it the first time.
I have had colleagues make assumptions that I want to hook up, simply because I’m friendly and curious in conversation, in the same way I am friendly to other people I know.
I have been accused of having affairs with husbands and colleagues of all ages and marital statuses, just for performing the duties of my job in a professional and kind manner.
I have been told that maybe an organization I worked for would get better results if a man was doing my job.
I have been criticized for being too good at my job.
I have been assaulted in the workplace and then blamed by a supervisor for the attack.
I have been called “kiddo” and told to “leave that to the men” by colleagues.
I have been directly told by a potential employer that they would never hire me permanently because I am a woman, with those words exactly.
All this, and never in a city larger than Santa Barbara. All this, 13 of which happened in Santa Barbara.
All this, and I was never dressed promiscuously, so I could not be accused of “asking for it.” Although I suppose one could argue that wearing a racing suit while swimming laps in a pool exposes skin and could be interpreted in that way by … well, someone, I guess.
I personally believe that these instances happened because I am a woman, or, to be more specific, that they would not have happened, or would have been less likely to happen, if I was a man.
So yes,
I carry a knife.
I carry a whistle.
I carry pepper spray.
I know how to shoot a gun.
I have taken self-defense classes.
I know how to do average repairs and maintenance on my car, in case I’m ever stranded somewhere.
I put on a fierce persona to keep myself safe.
I don’t go to dark or remote places alone, but when I have to, I pretend to talk on the phone.
I have all the safety features enabled on Lyft and Uber.
I set my destination on Google maps when I use a Lyft or Uber so I can make sure we are not deviating from the route (this behavior saved my life once in Georgia, btw).
I’m extra careful going into an all-gender bathroom that has multiple stalls. That doesn’t make me xenophobic, or homophobic, or transphobic. It makes me smart.
In spite of it all, I still try to be my authentic self in this world: look people in the eye, smile at strangers, listen attentively, give people the benefit of the doubt, and not hold back from fully expressing myself. It’s not easy, but if I don’t, it leads down a whole other path of self-repression and shame that goes nowhere good. I guess I’m waiting for humanity to prove the last 30 years of my experiences about it wrong.
Maybe my story isn’t textbook material, but I wonder if somehow, the collective voices of women will get at least a couple of sentences dedicated to them in the next revision of McGraw-Hill. Maybe I’ll submit something, like the following:
Throughout history, the ways in which women have been discriminated against and marginalized in society have evolved, and they persist to this day. We’ve come a long way since the 1700s in the eyes of the law, but in public culture, we still have a far way to go in securing women’s place of safety, respect, and equanimity.
What do you think? Is that enough?
