Today I had the joy of experiencing a running buddy while out on the streets. As I ran past him, he came into step beside me, waving his arms and making silly high pitched noises. After which he collapsed in giggles, so amused by the sight of a woman running down the road. All of this was done in the sight of, not a crowd of jeering lads, but what I assume was his young daughter. I can only imagine the lessons she has learnt about the value of women through her eyes as she watched this ridiculous display.

I wish it were rare. In the long time I have been running, I have experienced many things, such as a man stopping his car, winding down the window, then telling me I was ‘very nice indeed.’ There have been whistles, murmurs of approval, or sometimes just blatant staring. The other side of the reaction was a man telling me and my friend to ‘speed up, girls,’ as we ran past.

In the summer, it’s hot. What that means is, the most comfortable outfit for running is a pair of cycling shorts and a vest. I happen to have DD boobs. Believe me, this causes enough trouble in the choice of sports bra (Shock Absorber, absolutely brilliant), without having to factor in the reactions I might get in the street. A friend of mine, who is similarly endowed, posted on Facebook after being thoroughly pissed off after receiving a similar comment. Her (female) friend posted underneath that it was because of her boobs, and that she should feel flattered. What this is essentially saying, is that women of certain dimensions, or who happen to fit into socially acceptable views of ‘beauty,’ should not only expect and deserve unwanted attention, they should feel flattered by it. Extrapolate this argument, and it forms the basis of excusing someone who was groped on the Tube because they happened to have a nice bum and were wearing a skirt. Take it to the extreme and it’s exactly the same argument used to defend rape. Well of course it happened, she looked a certain way and was wearing certain clothes. Is it as bad? No, of course not, but it is a different shade of the same spectrum.

As always, I spent the rest of my run furiously planning a fantastic comeback for the next time it happened. I wanted to tell the idiot that told us to speed up that we were 8 miles into a 10 mile run, and already pretty knackered. I wanted to tell the guy on the street last week who told me to ‘smile, love,’ that my face does not exist solely for decorative purposes.

And there the floodgates opened. The times that people are surprised that I have an opinion about something political or scientific because I am blonde, or the times I have been advised to ‘steady on’ when enjoying a meal at the risk of getting fat. The time I had someone correct me when I said I had run 20 miles. Oh, you mean 20k, they said. The time someone had an entire conversation with me and didn’t look above my breasts. The time I saw a woman tittering and deferring to her boyfriend like a brainless idiot in order to appear more attractive. The times I’ve been told I’m ‘not like normal girls’ because I like playing computer games, or watching sci-fi films, or like drinking beer or whiskey. The time I was repeatedly charged for work on my car that hadn’t happened. The time I was pulled into the office by my boss (also a woman) who told me that my colleagues had complained about my clothing because it was ‘distracting.’

I could go on. There are times when I am so damn jealous of men. How lovely it must be to never have to put up with this shit. How beautiful it must be to walk freely down the road and not be expected to move out of everyone else’s way, just because you were born with a uterus.

These things exist in the world because of a patriarchal society. They do not exist because men are inherently horrible. Both men and women are to blame for perpetuating and excusing these behaviours, and it is a source of extreme annoyance that the idiot that waved his arms to me on the street today will cause me sleepless nights when I play the incident over and over in my head, and wish that I had thought of something to say before I had run past, that at least could have stayed in the mind of the little girl standing next to the wall, watching my humiliation.

I’m not an angry feminist, I’m bloody furious. And so should everyone be. Take that list of things that I have experienced in my life. Apply it to your sister, your niece, your aunt, your mother. It is not good enough that being born a different gender (insert colour, sexual preference, gender identification, any other ridiculous way people are categorised as ‘different’ here) means you are treated in a way that makes you feel humiliated. No-one should have to experience that. The next time some idiot says something like that to me, I sincerely hope I have the courage to call them out on it. Please join me. It’s the only way we can make this world a better place.

#feminism #people #women #article #equality #representation #gender