Bully For You, Too 2: I’m Too Pretty For This Shit

I had an incident tonight with the man who lives across the street from me. I can’t call him a neighbor, because this first interaction with him since he moved in a year and a half ago was nothing that can be considered ‘neighborly’.

Apparently, my parking on the street in front of my apartment blocks his driveway across the street.

He left a note on my car, demanding (yes, demanding - all caps, multiple exclamation points) that I move my car because it’s blocking the driveway. At first, I thought it was from my landlords and contacted them right away – even though I knew it couldn’t be from them because I wasn’t blocking theirs. Whose driveway could I be blocking? My landlord said she saw the man across the street put the note on my car.

I was still confused; I’ve parked there every day for 8 years. Sometimes, my mother’s or daughter’s cars are there, too.  I’ve seen his truck in the driveway since he moved in, so how could I be blocking it if he’s getting in?

As soon as I went to speak to him, he jumped all over me about how ignorant I was – and had been for the past year – because he couldn’t just come up the street and back in his spot if my car was there without pulling a little further up the street and turning around.  See, if he came in from the other direction (from the parking lot one house down from his) he wouldn’t have a problem. I got the 'mansplaining' slow-speech-with-hand-gesture description, too, in case his English sentences weren’t enough to make me understand.

He kept talking over me, repeating the part about my ignorance and my constant causing of his life-problem. I did get in that his note could have been nicer since we never spoke before and he snidely and arrogantly said, “Well, it got you over here to talk to me, didn’t it?”

He also actually SNATCHED the note from my hand and wouldn’t give it back. I got the impression he didn’t want me to have it to show anyone. It’s really too bad I took a picture of it first.

He started on an unfortunately familiar tirade; a combination of attempted intimidation, bullying, and talking at and over me all while he was telling me I was an unreasonable, ignorant moron.

(Read: “Female.”)

I ended up walking away from him, because I was beginning to get angry. I may have told him I could’ve parked a bus in that spot with less difficulty than he was having. I may also have told him that “YOUR BLOCKING THE DRIVEWAY!!!” should have been “YOU’RE BLOCKING THE DRIVEWAY!!!”

I definitely told him to bite me as I was walking away after he called me ignorant again.

(Hey, if I have to admit I’m human in other situations then I’m ‘human’ in these types of situations, too.)

Yes, I’m angry. I’m angry at the fact that there are still men alive that think gaslighting, bullying, manipulation and intimidation are tactics they still feel justified using on females.

Yes, I’m going there. Because you never hear of a man attempting that behavior with another man. And because this isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with it. And because I realized something else, too: I realized that I hesitate before I speak and tone down accusations of chauvinistic and patriarchal behavior unless it is above and beyond bad.

WTF! Why the hell would I do that?

Because of it. Because even though I was born in the 60’s – 40 years after women got the right to vote, a decade after douches stopped being advertised as a means of keeping our husbands interested in having sex with only us, and lived my childhood under the happy knowledge that Mary Tyler Moore was beginning to get the word out that women were people, too – I was still raised knowing that women had their place.

It’s already bad enough for me that I have opinions about things. I’m a little too opinionated. A little too willing to speak out. A little too willing to demand the respect that another person is demanding of me. Or courtesy. Or consideration. A little too masculine, I’ve been told.

(I thought being masculine was supposed to be a good thing?)

I’ll say this about penis envy: yes, there may be times I wish I had one, but not in the manner you might think.

It is un-fucking-believable that even in this day and age there are still men that believe women should not have a voice of any kind and do their best to shut us up.

When an employer says something like, “You’re a writer, right? Well, I got a 12^th grade education, but I’m sure I can explain this in words you can understand!” that is acceptable?

When a random man blocks your work vehicle and you politely ask him to move and get yelled at, “Relax, Lady!” Men are never told to "RELAX".  Unless Frankie Says it.

Then there’s the old, “You’re too sensitive!” Two employers have said that to me – not weeks after my employment started, but years after I’d been taking regular verbal abuse.  I’ve yet to hear that said to a man. When a man punches another man for insulting him (or his girlfriend, wife, mother, etc.), isn’t that reaction based out of being too sensitive to the other’s comment? And that is more respected and accepted than a woman verbally defending herself?

A man confronts another man with any issue. Does the man confronted ever call him ‘crazy for thinking that’?

So, we keep quiet until we’ve had enough. I’ve been at that tipping point for a while now, and yet still tiptoed around the subject. Because any hint of it from me brings an accusation that I’m “one of them” or an Angry Woman. And those women are social pariahs who have nothing on their agenda except male-bashing.

I’m sorry, but I’m angry now.

WAIT!

NOT SORRY. Just angry.

Sexism is alive and well. Women are taught from an early age that they must watch how they walk, talk, eat, dress, and express – because any and all of it can be taken sexually, and the power in our actions is strong enough to sway even the most pious. We put thoughts in men’s heads. Pubescent boys don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it through school without our ‘assistance’ in toning down our ‘distractions’.

How many of you women are comfortable eating a banana in public? A lollipop? Licking an ice cream cone? Walking confidently?

Even if our parents had a real partnership between them and told us we had no limits, there was still the insidious undercurrent all around us that we are different, and must be treated accordingly.

We aren’t allowed a bad day without hearing some version of our ‘overreactions’ or, worse, the condescending “sympathy” in the statement, ‘You’re too pretty to have to deal with this shit.” Great, my value and deservability is directly proportional to my decorative quality. 

What. The. Fuck.

Smile, Susie!

I’m screwed. Not everyone thinks I’m pretty (obviously, because I’ve been told I ‘overreact’). My ‘neighbor’ doesn’t think I’m pretty. Damn. He might have been nicer to me if I was. Instead, he tried to bully and intimidate me. That is a tactic men use on women they don’t think are pretty or when their pretty isn’t enough to toy with and since he didn’t try that route first …

Why is a woman called unreasonable for trying to reason with certain men? Am I really overstepping my bounds by daring to speak up for myself or to disagree?

THAT is what we are taught, in a myriad of little, tiny ways that some of you men consider insignificant.

Men speak authoritatively; women are just bossy. Men can know their own mind and not being able to be swayed is a good thing; women are too opinionated, incapable of having their own thoughts and if she can't be persuaded, she's a bitch.

Do I have to insert a disclaimer here that I'm not talking about all men?

DISCLAIMER: I'm NOT talking about all men!

“It BOTHERS you if I hold the door open for you?”

No, you fucking moron. It BOTHERS me if you only did so because I’m a girl. Because I know if I wasn’t too pretty for this shit, you’d let it slam in my face.

Hold the door open for me because I’m the person behind you, just as I do for the people behind me.

Like it or not, boys, we are still putting up with this shit. I don’t care if you are tired of hearing about it; we are tired of dealing with it. The more tired we get of it, the less willing we are to put up with it.

Especially me.

Because I’m too pretty for this shit.

(Until I get too old.)