I'm fed up with being harassed on the street. I was motivated to write this article a couple of days ago after I saw the new Wonder Woman movie, felt empowered for a couple of hours, and then felt embarrassed and violated while several men stared at and took pictures of me and my friend walking to the park. I was motivated to share a couple of my experiences with sexual harassment, or "catcalling," if you will. I don't necessarily have anything profound to say about the subject. I don't need to explain in depth how it feels to be sexually harassed, because if you've experienced it then you know all too well. You know that patriarchal society gives men a free pass to blatantly disrespect and even assault women with little to zero consequence. It's easy to feel hopeless. People who profess to care about your "safety" start giving you tips on how to avoid these sticky situations. "Never walk around alone," they say. "It was probably how you were dressed," they say. "You may have led him on," they say. "You should be flattered," they say. I'm really sick and tired of all the things "they" say. Sexual harassment is no joke. It's humiliating and it's dehumanizing.

Let's dive in. Here I am, walking to the park on a sunny Monday evening. I'm minding my own business, talking to my friend next to me, and this grown man and his teenage son stare at us for a prolonged period of time. They give me the old up-and-down scan a couple of times and I feel like a department store mannequin on display. A couple of minutes and a couple hundred feet down the sidewalk later, a man in his beat-up Corolla pulls to a complete stop, rolls his window down, and angles his phone camera at my ass. I meet his gaze with a look of disgust. He only pulls forward to the stoplight after another car approaches and urges him forward.

That was one of the more manageable experiences I've had with the men in my community. One evening, following a long-awaited screening of Finding Dory, I was in a joyous mood until a car full of prepubescent boys screeched to a halt next to me, rolled down the windows and yelled, "hey baby, why don't you come sit on my face?" followed by an abundance of hoops and hollers. I didn't engage. I made a bee-line for my car and I cried heavily over the steering wheel until I was calm enough to drive home. These boys were probably fourteen or fifteen, and they already learned that it was okay, fun even, to sexually harass women of all ages in movie-theater parking lots.

Another afternoon comes to mind when I think of sexual harassment. I was at a Mobil gas station putting air in my tires, like any responsible car-owner would do. A man dressed in construction attire pulls up to the pump behind me and seems to be pumping gas for an obnoxiously long amount of time. That's because he wasn't pumping gas. He was watching me intently, menacingly. I felt increasingly uncomfortable, but I had another two tires to go and I wasn't about to back down. He finally stopped and got in his car, but my relief was short lived as he pulled right up next to me whilst I was on my hands and knees, rolled his window down, and yelled, "hey honey, you got a boyfriend?" Not only did he make me feel incompetent, but I was fearful. I held my breath as I said, "no thank you," and watched him drive away. Later on I was told I should be flattered. Sure, flattered...

The climax of this series of tales is a particularly jarring episode from my senior year. It happened down the boulevard of my high school parking lot. Two students followed me down the boulevard at an uncomfortably fast speed. At the stoplight they rolled their windows down and screamed "WHORE, WHORE, WHORE" over and over again until I was in tears. I couldn't turn because of the traffic, so I was stuck there for several minutes while they laughed and screamed at me relentlessly. It affected me physiologically and emotionally. I was hyperventilating, I was sobbing and I was shaking. In that moment I ceased to be. I kept my hands firmly gripped to the steering wheel and my eyes glued to the road, but nothing felt real.

This is not an exhaustive list. I could tell you about the time that I almost quit my job because I could never make it to the building without being whistled at. I could tell you about the time when a group of men on their front porch catcalled me and my friend in the form of a freestyle rap (which was kind of clever, I have to admit). I could tell you about the countless times on Tinder when men have sent me vulgar messages and pictures in response to a simple, "hello!" or "I love the pic of your dog." I could tell you about the series of events that chronicled the first and last time I'll ever enter Wayside Central. But, alas, I'm tired and I think you get the point.

There are a lot of people that want to brush this issue under the rug because yes, it's easier to shrug it off, take "precautions," and look the other way. But the problem runs so deep. It's embedded in how we socialize our children into rigid gender roles. It's embedded in how we teach women that their bodies are for male consumption. It's a subtle yet vital element to maintaining the patriarchal social structure. I'm so sick of the way I'm treated in public, and you all should be too.