You aren’t entitled to touch me.
Two weeks ago I took the train from Leeds (where I study nursing) back to Cumbria (where I’m from). It’s my summer holidays, so I’d died my hair bright pink for going home. It’s 3 and a half hour long journey, so I had a couple of books with me and my Ipod charged full with Jurassic 5 on my ipod (I’m addicted to Quality Control at the moment). So I got my self settled in my seat reading my book and listening to my Ipod quite loud - I couldn’t have made it any clearer that I wanted to be left alone unless I had physically wrote a sign and hung it round my neck.
About half an hour into the journey (and I was pretty engrossed in my book by this point) something touched my hair. Not just brushed it, full on stroked my hair. And as my head whips up from inside my book, I notice a man sitting down opposite me on a mostly empty train. He was smiling at me (in quite a leery way) and started to talking to me. Remember, I’m wearing my headphones, I can’t hear him - why would he try and talk to me?
I removed my headphones and quite calmly (I thought) asked “did you touch my hair?”. He looked at me like I had 3 heads.
He replied “of course I did, it’s pink”. (Seriously, readers it took my all not to reply, “really, I didn’t notice”.)
So I just told him to not touch my hair and went to put my headphones back in and start reading my book again. As I pick up my book he says “why can’t I touch your hair, it’s pink. I’d be flattered if a girl started touching my hair”.
I mean how much fail can one person convey in a sentence?
I just picked my stuff up and moved to another carriage - I had 2 an half hours of a train journey left, I wasn’t going to spent it sat with this fail. The icing on this cake? Was hearing “bitch” shouted at me as I walked away from him.Yes I was the bitch, for moving away from the man who touched me without permission, sat next to me in a nearly empty carriage and then tried to justify touching my hair.
This is not a rare occurrence. I dye my hair different colours regularly; in the past 6 months alone it’s been blue, brown, black, pink, purple, green and red. I’m used to people staring, but I’m never going to be able to get used to people (and it’s nearly always men) touching me without my permission.
It’s not just my hair either. I work as a nurse and the amount of patients and relatives who slap my bottom is ridiculous. I’m meant to be a professional and yet it’s deemed acceptable to humiliate and demean me in public, because someone feels entitled to touch me. This happens on nights out as well. It’s humiliating, embarrassing and infuriating.
Why does this happen though?
The answer is actually right in front of our eyes. Women and people who are perceived as women (it’s ridiculous how much mis-gendering happens when people feel they are entitled to your body) do not own their body’s in any form of medium. Television, the internet, advertising, books, magazines, films - all of them will have a large dose of misogyny with women’s body’s being used to do something; to be sexy, to sell a product, usually a bit of both. Even women’s magazines - magazines for women - will regularly feature half naked women telling you that you to can look like the perfect white, hairless, skinny individual you need to be so someone else can appreciate your body.
Our body’s are our own. They are not commodities to be used, inspected and touched without express permission. We need to be boycotting advertising and mediums that thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to use women’s bodys for their own gains, because it just encourages the attitude that we don’t own our own body’s, that we don’t have autonomy over them.
Men, you need to stop touching women’s bottoms on nights out, or demanding their time and attention when they’re obviously busy with something else. Women are not their to entertain you, they are not “bitches” if they are not intersted in talking to you or indulging you.
We are not obligated to interact with you. You are not entitled to touch us.
-GK
(Source: thatfeministwithglasses)
