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@ioreka
https://medium.com/@mshannabrooks/why-women-smile-at-men-who-sexually-harass-us-cf4eeb90ed30#.r1edip2w6
"Sometimes when I get home, I tell my boyfriend about the persistence of interactions like this, the pervasiveness of it. He seems aghast, but I get the feeling that he, like of a lot of men, think I’m exaggerating.
I can’t entirely blame him; most people have a hard time grasping the gravitas of a situation until they, themselves, have experienced it. He’s never seen this happen in public. He’s never had it happen to him.
And, of course, he has told me to just ignore it because that seems like the most logical approach. When you ignore things, they go away, right?"
"“Seriously, stop being nice to him. You’re making it worse.”
This conclusion exhausts me because we have been over this and he should know better and I am tired of holding the hands of men in my life while also keeping my fists clenched as men I don’t know penetrate my space and expect my time.
It’s also decidedly untrue. He doesn’t know what makes it worse, because he hasn’t lived it every day. He has gathered much less anecdotal data than I have."
"It happens regardless of what I’m wearing, regardless of how I feel, regardless of how I move through the world. It’s not what I do and it’s not how I act. It is my presence — and just that!"