bob kao
columnist

A few weeks ago, after a nice, home-cooked meal with my friends on campus, we decided to catch a movie at Destinta. It was extremely cold and windy, but I was wearing a thin little skirt because it was a "Ladies Dinner" where all guys who attended were supposed to dress up. Too bad I was the only one in the spiritdonning the skirt, a burgundy turtleneck, a pink jacket, and orange fingernails. Although my appearance surprised people, it really wasnít anything unusual for me because I wear these clothes at Wesleyan on a regular basis.

What went wrong that night was my going to Main Street in the skirtand the other "feminine colored" clothing. Although the thought to change to something "normal" went through my mind for a few seconds, I really thought it would be cool to break cultural norms and do all the cool stuff that Cultural Psychology (you should take that class) has inspired me to do. (I was too damn lazy to change anyway).

Once we got to the movie theater, there was a group of Middletown teenagers, probably six or seven of them, loitering at the entrance and eyeing women walking by. Expecting them to look, stare, drool at me, I just looked straight and instantly charged into the theater as fast as I could. Apparently, it wasn’t fast enough to avoid them. "Wow, look at that dude. Let’s do him up the butt." I think that was the first time anything like that was ever directed at me.

Ignoring how pathetic these teenagers were, I just tried to enjoy the movie and my Sour Patch Kids. But as much as I wanted to forget about the remark, I couldn’t. The vulgarity, the brashness, the nerves, it was too much for me to handle all by myself. So after the movie, I decided to tell the two female friends who saw the movie with me what happened, although I had thought that they also noticed the incident too.

It turned out that they did not hear the harassment. It was probably because they are so used to being harassed by men simply by having to live in this sexist society every freaking day of their lives. The subjugation, the oppression, the persecution that women have to go through everyday just because they want to live is astonishingly disgusting. Yet, I did not grasp the gravity of this until I personally experienced once what women experience everyday.

I am currently taking a few classes that deal with issues of sexism and discrimination, but my experience has been purely limited to  academia. Yes, women are suffering; just like Blacks in ghettos, prisoners in Texas, and Falun Gong members in Chinaall very far away from me. Or are they?

A few weeks ago, I got mad at a very good female friend of mine when she told me that she trekked home across campus after a grueling practice session at the CFA. I was angry that she
walked home all alone in the gloomy darkness, even thought it was only seven or eight in the evening. But it was not her fault that she had to worriedly run home while clutching a whistle in her hands in case anything happened; it was because the Escort shuttle never showed up (most of the drivers are men is what I hear). But I blamed everything on her.

I blamed a potential victim just because she was born to be one. I was acting just like the billions of men who place the blame on female victims of rape because of the way they dress or their apparently suggestive behavior signifying that "they asked for it." I was acting just like a judge in Italy who, a few years ago, ruled in his court that women wearing jeans could not be raped because a rapist would never be able to take off a woman’s jeans without her help.

As a man, I am sure I have personally perpetuated women’s suffering due to my existence and the sexist things I have done. But the only instance I can clearly remember was my recent sexual harassment of men. Last weekend, probably due to my anxiety that Thanksgiving Break was ending soon, I began jumping on and excessively hugging every guy I saw who came into my house. Was this sexual harassment? I donít know. Is it okay if it was just in jest? It shouldnít be. Would it have been sexual harassment if I had jumped on girls? Most likely. Would the last answer necessarily change if I were gay? Hard to tell. I eventually stopped my nonsense when homophobic sentiments began emerging from some of the men. Clearly, sexual harassment and the oppression of women happen next to me all the time. I was just too dumb to realize it. 

To all the men and women whom I have inadvertently or purposely sexually harassed in the past, I am sorry. But this is just my own apology. There are billions of men out there who would harass, intimidate, rape women by any means necessary while not wasting even a minute to think about their actions or consequences. Men, please stop it. Does it really take being sexually harassed ourselves to stop our behavior?