It’s Thursday night and I’m making a plan for the Leon Bridges concert at the Greek theater the following evening. Because I couldn’t find anyone who shared my love for funky soul music, I was going alone --- and I was prepared. Berkeley is never very safe, and especially not at night. It didn’t help that I’d recently downloaded the Wildfire app, which in the last week had alerted me to two sexual assaults at the Greek and two homicides within a mile of my dorm. I didn’t know how late the concert would run, but no matter -- I had pepper spray and my basic street smarts.
Reassured, I head down to Peet’s to grab some coffee. As I enter with my roommates, an older man asks me if I’m in line by setting his hand on my hip for a moment. I’m confused; do I know him? Why did he just touch me? I smile hesitantly, reply that I am, and move slightly away. But I’m replaying the moment in my head -- did he see me and was reminded of his own daughter? Was that a fatherly, friendly action or should I be more concerned? Why did I smile? But he seemed nice enough -- maybe I should just stop worrying so much. Regardless, this moment has shaken me a bit, and as I return to my room, it strikes me that I felt paranoid in a lit room in the company of two friends and a dozen witnesses. What about tomorrow, when I’m walking home alone in a dress at night? Should I even be wearing a dress? Maybe dressy pants are a better option.
At some point in every girl’s life, her mind goes through the same questions mine went through on Friday night. She wonders if her clothes will attract attention. She double-checks that her pepper spray still works. Perhaps like me, she Googles “tips for walking home alone at night.” And at the end, she wonders why she has to.
My brother went to a Leon Bridges concert in Pittsburgh a few months ago. He also went alone, but he didn’t carry pepper spray or Google advice for getting home safely. I doubt very much he even thought of it, either. But for every girl who has ever been out alone, these things are about as necessary as their house keys.
I’m not trying to complain that girls are disadvantaged and boys have got it easy. I understand these are the sad realities of of living in an urban environment and to expect them to change because of a single article isn’t just naive but also dangerous. But, it isn't right that when a girl goes to college, she has to get not only a credit card, but a bottle of pepper spray as well. It isn’t right that the world dictates what a girl should wear to avoid attracting attention (some will say that a girl has a choice, but when the choice is between being catcalled or not, which one will she choose?) It isn’t right that a girl’s dad takes her aside one day to teach her how best to incapacitate an attacker. It isn’t right that a girl has to witness a complete stranger pretending to masturbate on a public bus.
But most of all, it isn’t right that the world teaches a girl that she is nothing more than an object on which to inflict violence and crude slurs.
