Cat Calling

Lately I have been reading Jezebel and Bitch Magazine and one of the things that comes up frequently is cat calling, and not really in a nice way. Here's an article about just that. I always feel a little bit conceited, a little bit.... vain maybe, when I talk about getting cat called, at some point I decided that I wasn't going to take it as an insult to female kind, I was going to take it as a compliment. And even though it does sometimes temporarily make me feel good about myself, it also, in the long run, and most of the time, makes me feel disgusting. There are the guys who, like a guy this morning, say "you look beautiful today" and then there are the guys that drive by slowly with their window down saying "I love you" and making kissy noises out their window. But this seems to happen to a lot of people, all the time. I, luckily, have not had to deal with a public display of masturbation (yet), and I hope I will never have to. I know that in the long run these people will not crack through my confidence, even if I occasionally have outbursts of anger about it. I want to say to these people "yes, I'm beautiful, but I also have a master's degree, so I'm smart, and I work on an urban farm/construction site, so I'm strong, and I support myself, so I'm able, beauty is only a minor part of the equation, and probably the least significant (at least I hope)". But I would rather have the people who call me beautiful than the friends who start out as friends and then slowly start making sexual innuendo jokes in my direction, and I question every time if they are masturbating while making these jokes, and I wonder why I don't cut it off before it gets that far. I try my hardest not to play along.. but it happens, and I get on with my life. I remain friends with these people, and some of them get over the joking, some of them never do, and luckily, I have never had anyone actually try to touch me inappropriately even if they do joke. I think I need to make a commitment to myself to not stand for this stuff any more. I deserve to be friends with people without the sexual jokes, and if you can't handle friendship with me for my personality, then maybe we shouldn't be friends.

On a side note, I am also a bit of a cat lady.