Hello from the unstable states of America. Or as a mug a friend gave me says, “I got 99 problems, and white heteronormative patriarchy is basically all of them.”
I haven’t dealt with an annoying stupid man at a bar in a long time. For one, I’m married, in my fifties, and don’t spend a lot of time in bars. I don’t generally attract that kind of attention in the first place. I probably haven’t had to deal with this in 25 years or so. I’m in my (obviously hot) crone years and I’m very good with that, thank you.
Even if you’re my friend, and I like or even love you, I tend to have this neurodiverse force field around me most of the time. The kind that means that someone leaving will hug everyone in the group except me, then say, “Bye, Claire!” from about three feet away. And usually, I’m fine with it. I’m not anti-hug. I didn’t put the force field there. It just is.
However, I am against nonconsensual touching, both on principle and viscerally. Which is really pretty basic in the 21st century. Right? Right??
I don’t have a lot of tolerance for fools. When I was in my early 20’s, I would sometimes adopt a very air-headed persona, just to watch stupid bar guys fall for it. Or when I was in college visiting my bestie at her campus, and the stupid bar guys would say, “You don’t go to Harvard! No way!” And I’d say, “Well, someone has to, hahaha.” Ha.
Joking, because what were they really saying? Looking back, I presented as a reasonably attractive and very privileged white girl, so who else did they think didn’t belong?
On Election Night 2024, there I was with my outgoing single friend at her favorite patio bar for dinner and drinks (outdoors in November in Ohio because everything is awesome climate-wise!), as the early returns started to come in. We were somewhere between celebratory and Last Days of Pompeii because we didn’t know WTF was going to happen.
Friendly bar guy on my left and his companions start to join in conversation with us. We’re talking about the election. Dude is drunk. I can’t gauge how old he is. Because he sounds like his frontal lobe isn’t fully developed. He makes a “Deez Nuts” joke. “I don’t like Trump or Kah-mahll-ah. Sorry, I just don’t.” Turns out he’s also in his fifties. Go figure.
I can make inoffensive conversation with the best of them. I’m not gonna ask his allegedly Libertarian ass why he doesn’t like Kamala Harris. Instead, I start my usual Libertarian rundown, well-practiced with my son in his teen years. Me: “Do you think we should have clean air? Clean water? Food assistance? Public schools?…” Him: “I - I know what you’re doing.” Okay, “Libertarian” who voted third party in this extremely consequential election between a fascist clown and a hyper-qualified minority woman. Okay.
None of this is what still bothers me almost a week out, after we know the devastating election results. What bothers me is how he kept fucking touching me, and I didn’t do anything, ANYTHING, about it.
More specifically, he kept weirdly pinching my left bicep every time he thought he said something witty. Digging into my muscle, squeezing it like a clown horn at the punchline. Honk honk!
I don’t even fucking know. It bothered me A LOT. My force field went undetected. He kept doing it. And I didn't tell him to stop. Why. WHY.
Even that night, I knew what I really wanted was to punch him in the face. (Side note, I feel like now is a great time for me to learn how to throw a punch.) I kept thinking about it. I could’ve said, “Please stop touching me.” Or something more forceful. Why didn’t I? I wasn’t afraid of stupid bar guy - he looked harmless and plus we were in public surrounded by tons of people. If you don’t already know, those types of calculations are immediate and subconscious for most women and other vulnerable folks.
All I can figure is that I somehow didn’t want to break the stupid bar guy code and say something unfriendly, no more ha ha ha. Something that could turn the conversation deadly serious in the blink of an eye.
Stupid bar guy didn’t mean anything by it, I’m sure. I don’t think even he was flirting; he was just drunk and stupid. But he grabbed my arm repeatedly, didn’t like Kamala for whatever reason, voted third party, and thought he was the greatest thing since sliced white bread (honk honk!). He encapsulated a lot of white male privilege for one dude at the bar. And I was seemingly fine with all of it.
When Me Too came around, I had some uncomfortable realizations. When I walked down the street, I felt obligated to make eye contact (ugh) and smile at the men I passed. Why? I don’t owe them anything. It’s so ingrained, from the age girls first become aware of the presence and danger of strange men and how they react to us. We pick up on this in childhood, from prepubescence. I’ve walked past plenty of catcalls in my life and squirreled my way out of plenty of iffy situations. Just keep walking, don’t engage, don’t tell them to fuck off, you’re just going about your fucking day as a girl or woman in America. Stay safe at all costs.
Women I know and I have experienced men and boys doing everything from commenting on our bodies (obviously on display for constant evaluation) to forcing themselves on us in one way or another. Where? School, church, in public, at parties, in the workplace, you name it. Usually, there are no repercussions - for the men.
The day after Trump was elected in 2016, I walked down Euclid Avenue from my office in downtown Cleveland to pick up lunch. A cruddy-looking white guy, probably homeless, called out, “SLUT!” as I walked by. Don’t tell me those events were unrelated.
Impossibly, it’s so much worse this time for all of our vulnerable communities, including women. Reproductive freedoms, whittled away by the right wing and some centrists for years, are now fully on the chopping block, and already gone for countless women and girls. Not just abortion, but access to birth control is in MAGA’s sights. Trans women and trans youth are even more unsafe with Trump’s apparent electoral mandate, as are LGBTQ+ marriages and families. Black women, Latina women, and immigrant women are being threatened with slavery(!) and deportation. Even childfree and postmenopausal women are subject to ridicule.
Make no mistake: bodily autonomy ultimately equals economic and social autonomy. The horrific chant, “Your body, My choice,” speaks volumes.
Next time, I tell myself, I won’t be silent. I won’t take it. It’s past time to break the unwritten rules of the patriarchy. Stop smiling and acting like everything’s fine. It seems like such a small thing, stupid bar guy touching me, and me tolerating it. It’s not. It’s part of a whole.
And I’m done. Done.
My body, your funeral.
Fuck yes, sister.
You know I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what it takes for women to first figure out that they are not safe in patriarchy and then to figure out they can move through the world and not to be complicit in it, while at the same time, not to be murdered by it. The only answered I have is sisterhood. Sisterhood is not just powerful. It is essential. In reading this, I wondered why your friend didn't speak up when the man touched you. I'm not casting blame. Just making an observation. . . . We are so accustomed to staying silent for our own protection - aren't we?
One problem that most women experience is fear. We stay quiet because we are afraid of male violence. The other problem that I see in my own life is that the people I identify as my sisters, don't see me the same way. White women have been too willing to identify with the master. They have been willing to sacrifice me to save themselves. I wonder if they are finally seeing that this strategy doesn't work . Perhaps we should be reading Audre Lorde to little girls in preschool. Two essential lessons Audre Lorde teaches that white women need to learn, and learn quickly I think, in order to understand sisterhood -- "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" and "your silence will not protect you." I know that I read Audre Lorde to my girls as wee babes . . . . And I have been giving her work to every woman I thought could hear it for the last 30 years . . .