Girls are brave.
Some men know this. I think many do not, because they cannot share the same reality. Most try.
Girls are brave.
We know from such an early age - before kindergarten probably - that in general:
- Boys are bigger.
- Boys are stronger.
- And a few - just a few, but an important few - are rougher and meaner.
We know these facts.
But yet we go on with our lives. We live day to day with the implicit - and sometimes explicit - vulnerability. And yet we put it aside and go on.
Everyday things. We don't even think about them. But underneath the surface, we know that any moment can be dangerous.
We all - boys and girls both - are vulnerable as children. Bigger kids can hurt us. We know this for sure. And although adults overwhelmingly would give their lives to protect children, we are warned again and again about the adults who could do us harm.
But boys (for the most part) can outgrow their vulnerability.
Girls keep if for life.
Women know that in general:
- Men are bigger.
- Men are stronger.
- And a few - just a few, but an important few - are rougher and meaner.
Yet we go on.
We walk alone to our cars at night.
We ride buses and subways and trains and taxis, and allow people to see where we are going, to see our habits and our schedules.
We shop with purses that can be grabbed. We carry too much - our arms are full. We try on clothes in dressing rooms with curtains that don't quite exactly close.
We rent apartments and buy houses, and call repairmen and let them in.
We work overtime in half-deserted offices, dark corridors, shadowy stairwells.
We travel for business and pleasure. We walk through airports. We check into hotels. We ride elevators.
We drive alone - knowing that if we are broken down on the side of the road, the person who stops may not be stopping to help.
We get lost. We ask strangers which way to go.
Ordinary things. Not dangerous things. Except maybe. Sometimes.
Some men get this. Louis C.K., for example, said that he can't believe the courage it must take for women to accept a first date. "Yes, I'll go out with you. Alone. At Night.....I'll get in your car."
Yet we go on.
We go on because we know that the odds are in our favor. That most men will love us and treat us with kindness and respect. And perhaps will be there for us in our most vulnerable moments. Help us when the minuscule fraction of mean and rough men might do us harm.
And we try our best to be strong enough to take care of ourselves.
But we know. It could happen.
Sexual assault is real. It doesn't have to result in physical injury to injure us.
Here is my story. It's a small story. Nothing really - not compared to what others experience.
I was nineteen. I had been visiting friends in Hartford, Connecticut, and was waiting for the bus that would bring me the twenty miles back home to Bristol.
It was a warm June day, 1970, and I was a teenager. Yes, I was wearing a miniskirt. Perhaps to some that makes it my fault.
It was the middle of the afternoon. The bus stop was crowded with people waiting for their various buses on busy Main Street.
A man approached me. He leaned into me, and I backed up. He continued his intimidation, and I continued to back up, until I was pressed against the wall of the building behind me.
He put his hands on me. Pressing my shoulders to the wall with his thumbs near my breasts. His face was inches from mine as he leered. I was motionless with fear. Many long seconds of fear. (or was it just a few?)
The bus arrived and I slapped his hands away and ran to the curb.
When I boarded the bus, I told the driver that a man had "bothered" me (the euphemism of the time), and that I was afraid he would get on the bus. The driver had me sit right behind him, assured me that he would not let this guy touch me again. He told me to point the creep out if he tried to board the bus. Thankfully, the creep did not board.
And it was over. Just a small, short, unpleasant experience. Not much. Nothing, really.
But here's the thing.
This was a crowded bus stop. The sidewalk was full of people. These people saw this happen. They watched. I saw them watch.
If one person had said, "Hey, stop that," it might have ended before he touched me. But no one said anything.
And back on the bus, safe but shaken, a man in a business suit approached me and asked if I was all right. He had been there.
I asked, "Why are you asking now? Why didn't you say something at the time?"
He answered,"I thought perhaps he was your boyfriend and you were just having a fight."
I realize that this episode was not a big deal. It did not affect my life in any significant way. Women have experienced much, much worse.
But I did learn a few things:
That women are always vulnerable, not just when we are alone.
That some people, like that kind bus driver will help if they can. But other people may not step in and help us. They may look the other way when a woman is in danger.
And I think most discouraging of all - that some people may feel that if a woman is in a relationship, that gives the man a right to touch her like that.
We are vulnerable.
And yet we go on.
Because we are brave.
Because it's nothing. Right?
**
Read more from Nancy at her blog, "Not Quite Old."
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-656-HOPE for the National Sexual Assault Hotline.