One day last summer, as I was walking home from the subway station, I felt a group of boys hovering beside me on the road. Glancing slightly over my shoulder I realized that the cluster of sweaty teenagers, some riding slowly on bikes and others walking along, was not an illusion and began to make me nervous. I walked more briskly.
My fast pace wasn't acceptable. A member of the group detached himself from the leisurely moving mass and trotted over to me.
"Hey," he spat into my face, and gesturing to one of his lanky pals, said firmly, "My friend wants to talk to you."
I rolled my eyes and quickly said, "Yeah, no thanks."
The boy seemed to be in shock and dashed back to his pack. It seemed as though he was recounting our "conversation," and his friends all seemed to be enraged by my response.
"Who the fuck does she think she is?" I heard one of them say as I hurried around the corner.
It has only recently occurred to me that the circumstances of the harassment I've faced by men while growing up in New York City—from the catcalling and being forced into conversations to being followed, chased and groped in broad daylight—are very much present in other aspects of my life.The hopelessness I feel always manages to stay afloat in an exhausting cycle of self-deprecation, street harassment, social discomfort, merciless adolescent boys; it is endless and I want to escape it.
Even while being away from the city and busy at college, I have allowed people to speak over me, ignore me, and force me into situations and interactions with others who make me uncomfortable. At my liberal arts haven, somehow, all hell still broke loose when (God forbid!) I asked for the freedom to say no to a man who was interested in me. I’ve been shamed for not being responsive to someone who doesn’t even make me feel good about myself, and it is so evocative seeing the heteronormative anger on the faces of strange, perverted city men when I attempt to escape them. I am expected to succumb to the gender hierarchy that is very much alive at home, on the streets of New York City, at my college—everywhere. I am voiceless.
I know that, despite how isolating it is to feel this way, it’s not unique. I am not alone. Humans equivocate being shy or soft-spoken to passivity, to needing to be spoken for or more incentive to be spoken over and taken advantage of. And, in my experience, when it comes to being involved with cisgender men, they pounce on their leeway to dominate and bask in the voicelessness that I wholeheartedly feel.
I don’t want to end this on a hopeless note. I accept that it takes effort on my part to work on, gradually, speaking up and speaking loudly. I no longer want to feel voiceless. I am ready to refute the obligation to give into the typical misogynistic behavior of millennial boys, I am preparing to fend for myself when I feel something is wrong. I believe that this powerless feeling that is gutted so deeply inside of me, and in many of us, can be alleviated. It will take time to bring back the voice that has shrunk so small back to life, and I am willing to work for it.
