By Chandler Groce
I have a love-hate relationship with my gender identity. I like being a woman, and I feel okay in my body. Sometimes though, I don’t like being reminded I’m a woman. I don’t like being called names like “baby” or “honey” by older men in my family. I know they don’t mean anything weird by it, but they don’t use the same language with my male cousins. I don’t like feeling my breasts against my body. Not because I don’t like my breasts, but they are a constant reminder that I’m a woman. I wear sports bras to avoid these thoughts. Do I have body dysmorphia? I don’t think so. I think I’m experiencing a kind of denial or dysmorphia that stems from fear.
The thought of being assaulted terrorizes me. If I’m alone in the city, I pay more for parking to be closer to my destination rather than walking a short distance. I’m cautious about Uber rides and will tell my friends where I’m going and when I’m supposed to be there. I won’t look at a man on the elevator or subway. It seems that even making eye contact with a man on the street is an opening for him.
Men call on me from their cars, from on the street, and even when I’m in my own car. It ruins my day when I get cat-called. I get scared, then enraged when the situation is over. I think of all I could have done differently, I fantasize about screaming back. Then I remember that I’m an object in their eyes, if they have no problem sexually objectifying me, then they’d have no issue killing me if I retaliated. I get so paranoid about being followed or yelled at that it prevents me from leaving my dorm. When I walk alone, I’m always watching who and what is around me.
Combined with my paranoia, I feel like I’m a walking target sometimes because of what’s in my pants. The harassment from strange men on the street is enough for me to not want to express myself. I stopped wearing skirts so that if someone tried to assault me maybe I’d have more time to escape. No one can take a picture of my parts if I’m wearing pants.
Women are trained to be on alert from a young age. We’re taught what a vagina is, not by its name but as a “no-no area” that no one should touch. We’re taught to never answer the door when our parents are gone or to leave with someone that says they know our parents. Every woman is taught to hold their keys between their fingers when they walk through parking lots. Carry pepper spray, a knife, a whistle, a gun. We’re trained on how to survive the everyday threat of the man with bad intentions. We live in fear and mistrust our whole lives, and to what end?
I wish sometimes I could feel the freedom of being a man. I don’t want to be a man, but I want to feel like one. I want to be confident and not second-guess myself. I want to not think twice about traveling by myself, whether to the grocery store or to Germany. Imagine my dating life: not having to be skeptical of one’s intentions or having to watch my drink.
I feel cursed by my sex, my genitalia. I’m scared of my body being used against me. I’m scared of being harassed. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t born a woman. But then I think, no, I just wish it wasn’t weaponized against me.
Despite the harassment from men I experience today, I think the future is improving. Boys today are being taught differently than their fathers and grandfathers. The future of improving the human condition for women in the urban setting starts at parenting. We can teach our boys differently so that we don’t have to teach our girls to protect themselves from them.
