An Open Letter To My Catcallers On My Way To Work

An Open Letter To My Catcallers On My Way To Work Dear Catcallers On My Way to Work This Morning,Like a stray hair that slinks down the skin of my back, I can feel your eyes. Like the Spanx under my skirt you strip away with your mind, your words suffocate me.On my way to the office, I saunter through Manhattans Herald Square. Its crawling with wide-eyed tourists, to whom youre supposed to be passing flyers and ushering onto double-decker buses. You call me an, ahem, part of the female anatomy because I wont smile for you. I grip my keys between my knuckles, and I flash you the finger.At lunch, you take a break from jackhammering the sidewalk to thrust your hips and hump thin air. You swallow yourdanglingtongue to ask me where Im heading. I cross the street. On a good day, youll say, God bless, and give up. But on fruchtwein days, youll hurl more curse words at me for not entertaining your offer.Sporting your gray suit that matches your gray hair, another one of you tells me that, if I let you take care of me, Ill never have to work.With your briefcase in hand, youwaveme over. I choose topretend I dont hearyou.Its daylight savings now, and I seldom leave my desk before the night falls. But I can mucksmuschenstill see you, shrouded in darkness but illumined by the display of your phone. When youre on foot, you follow me home some blocks before you grow bored. Im not on the phone with anyone Im drowning out the details of your disgusting desires, hoping that my preoccupied negligence might deter you. When you stalk me by car, you roll down the window to whistle and whisper dirty nothings you drive sluggishly at my pace. I snap a photo of your face, or your license plate, and I dial the police.Sometimes you show aggression but, ultimately, you dart or drive off.One time, you snapped a photo up my skirt. Im still not sure if I prefer that to the time you spit on me.I used to want to ask you how youd feel if someone treated your mother, sister, or daughter like a bu tcher does meat. I used to feel inclined to ask you why what do you actually think youll accomplish? But I know you have little to no regard for my thoughts and I know you wouldnt know how to handle a woman who welcomed your advances anyway.In fact, I used to be afraid of you. I used to take different routes to the office to avoid you, but evermore of you lurk around each corner. So I wouldnt prove an amusing target, I used to plug headphones in my ears with no music, so I could still hear you in case your words were threatening.As a woman, Im a dauntless spitzenkraft of my own life but, as women, weve all been conditioned to fear the same horror stories. Horror stories in which you, catcaller, are cast as the lead antagonist. Its because we boast an education system that fails to discipline our bullies, endorse a media landscape deficient in our voices but replete with those of our oppressors, and laud a legal structure perfused with patriarchy. Women, like me, are told to tolera te life as passive victims oftraditionsamongboys who will be boysin aworldbeset by bigotry, exacerbated by the objectification of our bodies as weapons of war, global gendercide, sex trafficking, and the sheer notion that one of the fruchtwein developed nations in the world chalks sexual assault up to locker room talk.When conditioned fear couples with a dwindling hope for deliverance in a society that promotes an agenda that too often negatesour own, women become perpetually paralyzed by the thralldom of what if. What if you actually do the things you say you want to do to my body? What if you do snatch me up in your truck on my walk home? For a lot of us, the politics of life with a vagina becomes the bane of our existence.But I wont allow it anymore. And the more youve hounded and humped, loitered and licked your lips, coaxed and cursed, the more Ive unfortunately gotten used to it all as the norm, and the more Ive realized how unafraid I am unterstellung days. The more Ive reali zed, Im not scared you are.Youre afraid that a woman, on her way to work, might just change the world as we know it.Youre afraid that a working woman, afforded a voice, might just shut you up one day and not by flipping you the bird or calling the police but, rather, by rising to a position you wouldnt dare disrespect.So, Im ready when you are. When you really think youre ready to handle a real response to those catcalls, lets talk. Until then, Ive got a job to crush.Unapologetically,AnnaMarie--AnnaMarie Houlis is a multimedia journalist and an adventure aficionado with a keen cultural curiosity and an affinity for solo travel. Shes an editor by day and a travel blogger at HerReport.org by night.