Discovering How Men Treat Women When Those Men Mistake Men For Women

[joreth]

www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a28027/when-i-stopped-cutting-my-hair-i-learned-how-men-treat-women-on-american-roads/

I was at Gasparilla one year (an official excuse for the city of Tampa to get roaring drunk in pirate garb), watching the parade. I was up against the barricades, as close to the parade as you could get without actually being in it. Some dude was, well, apparently he was attempting to slam dance next to me. I have no idea why - there wasn't any music appropriate for that and no one else was interested in joining in.

So he was throwing himself around the crowd in that mosh pit way, getting a larger and larger circle as people tried to avoid him. But not me. I had a fucking awesome place to see the parade and it was my first Gasparilla goddammit, I was gonna hold my ground.

So he slammed into me one more time and I pushed him back. He stopped, puffed up his tiny chest, and started cussing at me. So I turned to face him and started cussing back. So he said something to the effect of "you better stop saying 'fuck off', bitch, or I'm gonna hit your boyfriend". The "boyfriend" in question was a tall, gangly, computer nerd I had been dating who was standing behind me and desperately trying to hide behind my much shorter frame.

So I looked the dude in the eye and said, slowly, clearly, and loudly, "Fuck. Off."

I could hear my boyfriend whispering to just let it go, we'll move somewhere else and tugging on my sleeve, but I didn't break eye contact. The dude repeated himself "go on, say it one more time, and I'm gonna fucking hit your boyfriend."

"Fuck. Off."

"Bitch keep saying it, I dare you.

"Fuck. Off."

And on it continued. Notice how he never did actually take a swing at my boyfriend, nor did he address the guy in any way. He focused his entire attention on me, trying to intimidate me. But I don't intimidate, mainly because adrenaline makes me stupid sometimes.

Eventually, he got tired of repeating himself and not seeing the reaction he wanted, so he turned away and melted into the crowd, throwing gendered slurs over his shoulder the whole time. I watched the crowd close up around him, all eager for a front row spot to see the rest of the parade that he had been hogging, and I went back to the parade.

My boyfriend was all kinds of freaked out and worried aloud at what might have happened had the dude made good on his threat because he'd never been in a fight in his life and had no interest to see what it was like.

I said, "don't worry, sweetie, he'd have to go through me first."

I'd like to say this is the only time something like this has happened, but it's not. I have several such encounters of guys completely losing their shit at me, either to back down when a guy came to my defense or to exclusively direct their shit at me instead of the men around me, any of whom could have been the culprit for whatever Angry Dude was mad about.

I've also been fortunate enough to have several guys with me when these sorts of things happen who, when Angry Dude said something about "control your woman" or "you gonna stand up for her or what?", respond "nah, dude, she's scarier than me, you're much worse off dealing with her," who then sit back and, by their confidence in me, show the dude he's in the wrong. That often diffuses situations better than my guys jumping in the fray.

Now, if any of them ever *actually* took a swing at me and I had guy friends (or any friends, for that matter) nearby, I'd very much appreciate some physical assistance. But usually just their presence scares off Angry Dude as it does in this article, or if he's too amped up to back down, their amusement and willingness to let me fly off the handle confuses Angry Dude and makes him wonder what kind of mess he's gotten himself into and he'll wander off shouting slurs rather than escalate to violence.