This was my moment, back in 2013.
'Hiya!'
What? Hiya, hello? Who? Huh...?
'Oh yeah! Slut shorts, love it!'
Are
they talking to – or rather, yelling at – at me!? Surely not. I'm
scared to look. Suddenly I can't turn around. Are they gone yet?
'Mate,
green light! Go! Turn it up...'
I
was taking a photo of the latest joke scrawled on the blackboard in a
local cafe window. It was one a customer had sent in via Twitter, and
it was hilarious. A nosy pepper gets jalapeño business!
Ingenious. So imagine my surprise when I hear those green man bleeps
sounding at the end of the road, then car engines slow down and pull
up, and then...shouts.
It's
27 degrees. This is a pretty built up area of the tiny city. I'm
wearing denim shorts. I debated it for 11 minutes this morning before
I left my house, I even consulted my least horrid house mate and even
she nodded her reluctant approval. Going bare-legged was a big deal,
and I was braving it. I couldn't not.
Slut
shorts?! What did that mean? I
vaguely recall some of my friends at Reading Festival shouting it at
crowds of young girls as they passed through our camping section –
but that was at 4am when we were quite deaf from the music that night
and had been drinking out of a bucket for the past hour or so. Nobody
was responsible for what they said. Although that's what I'd said
when I told that guy I loved him on one of those nights...and didn't
hear it back.
I
finally turn and see a red Corsa with the windows rolled right down
and boys – not men, boys, my age so technically men but no, yucky
immature boys – leering out the windows at me. Me. Of all
people. I search the street
without daring to turn my head too much, looking for their real
target. It can't be me. The
boys in the snap back caps and mirrored sunglasses are addressing
someone, anyone, else.
I
ignored it.
The
lights changed.
They
were gone.
Later
that same day, I'm on the train. I'm hot, sweating into my seat. My
new necklace, the silver (coloured) Deathly Hallows symbol on a
chain, is starting to smell and leave marks where it sits on my skin.
I shift it around to avoid spots emerging where it normally falls.
'Aww
mate, she has a Harry Potter necklace. I think I love her, I do.'
'Ha,
you love a geeky girl, mate.'
'Do
not. She's hot, too.'
'No
tits, though.'
'We
just can't see 'em.'
It's
happening. It's happening again. Thank goodness Bournemouth is close.
I
was visiting my best friend in his lovely seaside home, staying with
him and his family for a night. The perfect place to spend this sunny
day, this summer's eve. I stood up as I saw the tall, pretty, brick
walls of the station approaching. I hadn't found the source of the
voices, yet. But when I settled into the queue for the doors, which
began not far from the middle of the carriage as it was so so busy;
when I reached out and stabilised myself against a free seat to my
left, I felt something coming from behind me. On my bare shoulders. A
wet breath, and...a hand. On me. On my...there. On my shorts. Against
the denim. Feeling me. On my arse. My actual arse.
Slut
shorts.
Of
course I cried, then. Of course I turned ever so slightly in a
pathetic attempt to dislodge the hand, the touch. My face was burning
on the air conditioned train. I went to hold up a hand of my own and
say something. Something, anything. Nothing. It didn't happen. I just
cried. When I dared lock eyes with him, he was grinning. It was
sickening.
I
got off the train and immediately saw a female attendant on the
platform. Female. She'd get it. She'd see. A male might not. Awful
thought, but...I can't take the chance. Can't give a man a chance.
Women get it more, and so they get you.
'I
got touched.'
'Honey,
who?'
'Him—'
I point, she squeezes my shoulder and sets off in impatient pursuit.
I walk out the other way, I don't see if she catches him or says
anything. I like to think she did.
But
he might not have listened, if she did. He might have shrugged it
off. He might have grabbed some other girl right away. Who knows.
Who.
Same
with the cat callers. Those boys. They got away, they don't see their
wrongs. They carry on. They shouldn't. But they do. When will it
stop?
This
was my moment. I wrote an angry Facebook status and from then on I
swore I'd always speak up and not let shit fly.
***
Hey,
Holly, this was when I decided not to flick a switch. I wish I'd had
Lottie, back then. I'm so happy we all have her now.
People, find & buy & read What's A Girl Gotta Do? - it's important.
People, find & buy & read What's A Girl Gotta Do? - it's important.
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