Fury

I tried to wear something nice yesterday so that I wouldn't look like I haven't been sleeping or eating properly all week as I slave to finish a rough draft of my manuscript. By nice, I mean not a t-shirt and cords or sweat pants. I felt like it was working. I looked nice, I seemed more alert. Things were going well.

I was in fact on the phone with my old rugby coach talking about an editing project he might be hooking me up with this spring. I was being professional, so professional that I had to keep talking to him while I walked to the bus stop to go to work.

As I was walking down the street, talking about my professional experience and qualifications for using my brain to do important work, a man leaned out of a tow truck window and yelled at me:

"Hey, beautiful. Why don't you walk that fine ass over here and talk to me instead."

I hate him. I hate that I was trying to use my mind to have a conversation and some man thinks it was ok to look at my body and assume it was ok to objectify me like that. I hate that women everywhere aren't valued as productive, sentient, wonderful beings and are instead downgraded to walking vaginas and breasts. Even spell check doesn't think vaginas is a word! Even our body parts aren't allowed to be legitimate.

I'm on a patriarchy purge today. God help the basketball players if they call me sweetheart at work again. I might make them read Judith Butler until they are shocked at their own behavior.