You are walking down a street on the way to your local coffee shop when a man walks past you and calls you a prude, simply because you aren't smiling. All you were doing was walking to get some coffee. You are at a party on a Friday night after a hard, busy week of school, and all you want to do is dance with your friends. A guy keeps pulling and tugging at you to get you to dance with him, and you keep pushing his hands away or attempting to lose yourself in the crowd on the dance floor just to get away from his grasp that doesn't seem to get a clue. All you wanted to do was dance with your friends. A guy has a crush on you, and when you don't have the same feelings for him in which he has for you, you are suddenly a "bad person", and he simply won't let you forget that. All you did was express your feelings in its full truthfulness. The idea that some men think that they are entitled to criticize or have any woman they see is probably a scary thought. It should be. It's also prevalent in today's society.
As a woman who has confronted these exact issues head-on, looking back, I know I am not alone in experiencing these types of daily situations. However, in the moment, I felt isolated from everyone and everything around me. Even for some days afterwards, I felt like a small part of myself was taken away. An even smaller part of me would wish that what was in-between my legs was different, because maybe then, no one would feel the need to violate me so freely.
The feminist movement was created, and continues to flourish in today's society because of the constant casual sexism cases against women around the world that make it more and more dangerous for them to even coexist. The feminist movement does not harbor and is not leaded by "a bunch of whiney girls" with "triggers" and "fake problems", or whatever some people say in attempt to hide such a vital movement under the rug.
I am a feminist because I want my voice heard. I want to take the "casual" out of the phrase "casual sexism" and make it rare to the point that it is shocking to hear accounts such as my own.
Having my limits and my boundaries with others does not mean that I believe that the world revolves around me; that I am needy; that I want to be a victim. If that is ever the thought process of someone witnessing or hearing about accounts of a woman having part of herself being taken away at the hands of a perpetrator, congratulations on being part of the problem.
Invalidating the issues in which your gender or your gender's counterpart encounters on a daily basis does not make this world any safer. If you want the feminist movement to stop being so "annoying", then actively try to make sure that the women in your life are treated fairly. Actively do your own part to respect women in any way in which you possibly can, and treat them as your equal. It is not a requirement in life to actively speak on behalf of the feminist movement, and no one expects you to specifically fix all issues in which females around the world go through.
Even being socially aware enough to realize the mistreatment of women is beneficial. Simply don't be the guy who calls her out for "not smiling" as she walks down a busy street; don't be the guy who keeps grabbing her waist on the dance floor in the hopes that she'll change her mind; don't be the guy who cannot take no for an answer. Don't let your friends do it. Don't let another girl go home and wonder what she did to deserve your mistreatment.
A woman is not your entitlement, she is not your reward for anything, and you do not own her. Know your boundaries, learn social cues, and stick to them to avoid damaging the mind of a fellow human being. The freedom of speech and expression is a constitutional right that you can practice all you desire, but maybe you can stop hugging your constitutional rights for two seconds to think about how your words and actions may perpetually affect others.
