Diglee’s excellent post<\/a> on the topic.<\/p>\nLike her – and a good number of my girlfriends – I’ve also been a victim of this.<\/p>\n
When I arrived in Paris at the age of 20, bright-eyed and naive, I wore tight, tight skirts (and fuchsia sweaters, oh yeah) and smiled all the time, at everyone.<\/p>\n
One day as I was climbing the stairs to the metro, I ran across a weird-looking guy who was watching me as he rolled up his magazine.<\/p>\n
[Illustration: Woman in skirt walking up stairs, man with magazine walking down stairs]<\/p>\n
And… believe it or not … I smiled at him!!!<\/p>\n
Except that, two seconds later, he walked behind me to slap me on the butt with his magazine!<\/p>\n
[Illustration: Magazine hitting butt]<\/p>\n
How humiliating.<\/p>\n
I hadn’t even done anything.<\/p>\n
(Unless wearing a skirt and smiling made me RESPONSIBLE) <-- something that certain people think\n\nHonestly, what happened afterwards - I sobbed for hours.\n\n[Illustration: Woman crying]\n\nAt that time, I experienced other aggressions like this, clearly misogynist or sexual in nature. One of the most memorable - after the encounter with the magazine - was the time when a hobo sat close to me in the metro and in the two stations before I could get off (what seemed like an eternity to me), he shouted things like:\n\n\"I'm sure this one ain't wearing underwear under that skirt, I'll stick my fingers in 'er to be sure!\"\n\nIt was the longest three minutes of my life, all the worse because the people around me seemed incredibly interested by the ceiling or their shoes.\n\nI stopped wearing skirts then, and when I dared to wear them again, I was 35 and the cloth went past my knees.\n\n(Because - just between us - I learned that after 30, one experiences a lot - well, a lot less - of these kinds of things)\n\nAnd if today I would have yelled louder to defend myself, at that time I was in a mute stupor to find myself considered like a\n\n[Illustration: vase with flowers\nAnnotation: Although it seems you don't hit flower pots...]\n\nThis revelation, it puts a feminist soul in you for your whole life.\n\nBut above and beyond this rejection of an essential battle for equality, what I notice is a striking re-emergence of the boy\/girl opposition. Whether it's in fashion, books, or school (the polemic about the ABC's of equality).\n\nYou get the impression that they want all little boys to be superheroes and all little girls to be princesses.\n\nThe pressure is so strong that the same fear is found in the parents.\n\nOn a Sunday not long ago, my daughter and her cousin (a boy) were playing next to a fairy tale castle:\n\n[Illustration: Castle]\n\nA little boy ran up\n\n[Illustration: Boy running up.\nSpeech bubble: Wanna play with thaaaat!]\n\nbefore his father quickly stopped him\n\n[Illustration: Boy held back.\nSpeech bubble: NO! It's for girls]\n\nAnd even though the mother protested (meekly) by pointing out my daughter's cousin\n\n[Speech bubble: But look, there's another little boy playing....]\n\nHer little boy had to leave, reluctantly.\n\n(NB: My daughter's cousin was the ONLY little boy to be found there)\n\nA few days ago, in the metro (the metro is a great place to discover urban wildlife)\na little boy sitting next to me was particularly interested by (attracted to?) my sparkling bag.\n\n[Illustration: Woman and boy sitting on metro seat. She is carrying a purse.\nAnnotation: Highly sparkly studded bag, golden boots (I have to admit that I'm really into glitter right now)]\n\nHe just wanted to touch my bag, which naturally didn't bother me at all.\n\nUntil his mother, sitting across from us, intervened:\n\n[Illustration: Mother of boy.\nSpeech bubble: Nathan, don't touch!\nSpeech bubble: Anyway, sparkles are for girls!!!]\n\nI didn't have the time to protest because they got off at the next station.\n\nBut seriously,\nWHAT\nIS\nTHE\nPROBLEM?!\n\nWas she afraid that her son would turn gay if he touched the golden pieces of my handbag?\nIs it dangerous for boys to like sparkles?\n\nIt's definitely not the view of my friend J\u00e9r\u00e9my who wears moustaches AND sparkles every night\n\n[Illustration: J\u00e9r\u00e9my\nCaption: Yeah yeah, like Conchita]\n\nAs long as we are still being told that men and women are \"not the same\" - as if there were only one way to be a man and one way to be a woman - and that people are not equal, from any point of view, just because of their sexual attributes, we need feminism.\n\nEven if those who have forgotten what they owe their forebears don't like it.\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Translation of the brilliant illustration here: http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.fr\/muriel-douru\/le-feminisme-mais-pour-quoi-faire_b_5633338.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1253,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions\/1253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}