First of all, who do you think you are?

Seriously. You don’t know me, or any of the other women you yell at, so why do you think you can behave this way and it’s okay? What goes through your mind that makes you think “Hey, this girl needs to be yelled at”? Or even worse, what makes you think that when we ignore you, you are have the right to get angry or hostile?

I am getting sick and tired of getting hollered at by men who think it’s okay to sexualize me while I run my day to day errands.

I do not want your attention.

I do not owe you a response.

I say this like you don’t already know. But I know that you aren’t yelling at me because you honestly think you’re complimenting me. You also don’t want to get to know me or engage in a conversation. It’s a power trip. You yell at women because we can’t do anything to protect ourselves from it. The easiest thing we are able to do in defense is to say no or tell you off, but if we do, we run the risk of being attacked.

There are news stories over and over again about women who get attacked just for refusing to entertain the advances of catcallers. Attacks over ignoring them, refusing their advances, and sometimes men who get attacked for trying to defend women who are being catcalled. People love to say that catcalling isn’t dangerous, or that it’s just harmless flirtation, but it is neither of those things.

Not only have I heard stories and seen news reports of women being attacked for rejecting men, I have personally felt afraid for my safety when I did not give the appropriate response to men who yelled at me from across the street.

Growing up we learn how to walk home with our keys between our fingers like brass knuckles, we learn that pretending to be on our phone may make someone stop bothering us, to act like we’re pissed off so people don’t think we’re going to be nice, we calculate what ways to walk home so that we don’t pass certain groups of people. These aren’t things that we would do if we didn’t think that these people could literally hurt us.

This is a similar concept to the men who claim to be “good guys” or “nice guys”.

No. If you were actually a nice guy you would not have to work so hard to prove it, and you would actually be a nice guy. The fact that you get angry, hostile, and sometimes downright violent with women who tell you no solidifies the fact that you are indeed not “nice guys.”

You hold a sense of entitlement that you have done nothing to deserve.

Being someone’s friend does not entitle you to anything; a relationship, sex, even a conversation. And you should not only be good to someone because you think you are going to get something in return.

You should be good people because being a good person is the right thing to do.

You should not yell a people you do not know, especially crude or sexually explicit things.

And if you to tell me to smile, know that I will imagine myself ripping your throat out with my teeth, and walk away.