As I approach the holiday of Purim, which has numerous aspects of women’s empowerment, I think about the status of women today.I’m not fooling myself. I know that women have a long way to go in terms of deconstructing gender discrimination. But I also usually think optimistically, and that women have indeed progressed pretty far.
Well, in the last 48 hours, several men have said things to me that for some reason they thought were absolutely fine to say.
1. When I was at the fancy-dress (costume) shop getting some accessories for Purim, I was at the cash register, and I asked the clerk how much I owed him. He told me I owed him nothing if I took a little more off.
What??!
I told him he was getting away with that only because he works in a costume shop.
2. Last night, on the way to the theatre, I asked an employee in the London Underground what platform we needed to be on to get to a certain station. He told me “Platform 2”, and then gave me a loooooong and slooow once-over. He then said, while raising one eyebrow, “Is that all?”
3. This morning, on my way to class, I was sitting on the bus, on the top deck. I was looking out on the street, dreamily enjoying the bus ride, and noticed a maybe sixteen or seventeen year old boy listening to his iPod, looking me over.
Whatever, I think.
But ten minutes later, he sits next to me. In broken English, he says:
“Excuse me, I am new in this country. Do you think you could tell me where to bus goes?”
I tell him.
“Maybe, since I don’t know the country that well, you would accept my friendship?”
I tell him no, I don’t accept friendship from strange people on buses.
“Please?”
I ignore him.
“Just give me one question. Where you from? Poland? You look like Polish woman.”
I ignore him.
“French? German? Swedish? Canadian?” He goes on.
I kind of laugh inside that he has basically said every country on the globe except for America. He leans closer, and put his arm around my seat. I am poised, ready to get up and walk down the stairs to the front of the bus.
“Just let me tell you one thing. You look very, very, nice”.
He raises his eyebrows.
“This is my stop!” I say, and I dash down the stairs and run off the bus, only to be whacked in the chest by someone holding a full sized mannequin. Yup. Holding a mannequin.
Those stories said, while I dress like a lot of modern women, in jeans/trousers or skirts a bit above the knee with tights or leggings, I certainly wouldn’t qualify my attire as particularly “sexy” or “skimpy”.
But I feel ridiculous having to defend my attire. Sheesh. What year is this?