I’ve heard it again and again, “Men are not here to protect us.”

I didn’t believe it, but that was just because I didn’t see it, nor did I feel it. I didn’t feel their eyes on me while I walked through a crowded subway. I didn’t have to pick up the pace, walk a little faster. I didn’t feel the bile rise in my throat, desperate to just get home and to just get away.

But in not experiencing these things, I’ve helped to undermine other women and their experiences. I couldn’t believe in what I heard because I had never seen it for myself; but for those women whose every waking moment was haunted or overshadowed by those moments, the experiences were all too real.

I counted myself lucky.

But then I grew breasts. I started to wear lipstick. I liked wearing skirts.

And those ‘games’ that the high school boys played on other girls, they were suddenly playing on me. They started to slap my ass when I walked in front of them. They started to comment on how pretty my lips were. The way that my clothes were fitting me.

And then I knew how other women had felt. I laughed to be ‘cool’ and to be a part of it, but I would go home and tear off my clothes, and smudge my lipstick until it faded. When I started to get attention, I wished I could have gone back to the times when I hadn’t. I wanted to go back to the times when I felt I didn’t just exist for a bunch of boys to gawk at me. The times when I wore what I wanted without feeling eyes on me.

I started telling myself, “Men are not here to protect us.” I repeated this mantra when I heard of ex-boyfriends killing ex-girlfriends, a rejection that ended with a girl lying on a stretcher. Men are not here to protect us.

My first semester of college, I met a lot of men who scared me. Men who walked me to my dorm, who would show up at random places and come and talk to me. These same men sent me messages that I couldn’t understand. A message that I didn’t want to understand. I got to the point where I believed that every man I would meet at college would do the same, and so I stopped meeting men. I stopped responding to them in class. I stopped saying hello to them in passing.

I used to count myself lucky.

I’ve since generalized. Otherwise, it would be too heartbreaking to realize that the men I know and love can be the same way.

The scary thing is, I think they can be the same way. I’ve woke up to kisses in places I didn’t want them, and pretending to still be asleep doesn’t seem to deter them. I’ve worn things when I didn’t want any attention, and yet I still received it at home, dragged down to sit on his lap. I’ve noticed him staring at me in public places, in private, in the morning and at night, and I just wish he would look at me differently.

Men are not here to protect us.

There are men who are in power who joke about women and our bodies. There are men who can rape women and still be remembered as great, and are still allowed to play in college football games. There are men who will rape a woman and upload videos of it so others will see.

I used to like the attention. I used to think that it meant I was desirable.

But I don’t care for that anymore. Instead, I want to scare men away.

I don’t want men’s opinions on whatever I choose to wear. I don’t want men to decide what is best for me. I don’t want men to tell me what to do or what not to do.

I want to be a woman without fearing that something could happen to me. Without fear that some man may take my friendliness as a go-ahead. I want to be a woman who can walk home by herself. I want to be the type of woman who can stand up for herself.

Men are not here to protect me.