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Men must help fight sexism
By Zoë Williams
williamz@mscd.edu

On Aug. 7, a 24-year-old woman was driving through Denver’s suburbs late at night. She pulled up to a stop light. A car with several men in it pulled up. They began harassing her, requesting she “hang out” and asking for her number.

I would venture to say that every woman in existence in this country has been in a similar situation. Whether walking down the street or driving in a car, men catcalling and harassing us is practically a part of everyday life for the female-identified portion of society.

Sometimes women respond. My friends often react by explaining that the actions of said men are sexist and motivated by male privilege. While waiting for the bus on Colfax, I have seen many women shy their eyes away and walk off.

The woman that was driving around chose to drive off as the light turned green.

Reactions to the responses of women vary. Some men laugh it off, while others pick a new victim. At the bus stop I have heard men scoff or yell insults at women once they have turned the men down. I have been threatened with weapons.

As she drove off, the aforementioned woman heard yelling. After that, she heard gunshots. A bullet even passed through her driver’s side window, though none struck her.

I would say that these men were acting in a fashion that was taught to them since birth. I believe that, in this culture, women are viewed as a commodity, and men are taught to treat them as objects or possessions. When women disagree, men are taught to punish them.

My opposition would argue that the situation in which a woman is shot at for turning down a proposition is extreme. I would love to believe this, but I cannot.

When one in four women has been sexually assaulted in their lifetime throughout the state of Colorado, I struggle to believe that the boundaries established by women are really respected. To me, firing shots at someone who turns down an unwanted suitor and sexual assault are one in the same. The point is simple. When women do not submit, they will be forced to.

I am also well aware of the reactions that my statements about male privilege and sexism elicit. This is my third year writing for this paper and at least once a semester I write about sex assault and gender-motivated violence. Every time I do, I receive the most disturbing, offensive and explicit hate mail I could have imagined. I am called a man hater and a “feminazi.”

While I generally avoid doing so, I want to address this notion that I hate men. In case you are really wondering, I do not. That is not really the point. It seems that whenever a woman points out the fact that men have all the power and privilege in the world or that they exploit women to no end, they are slapped with the title of “man hater.”

This is not about women at war against men. The late and great Andrea Dworkin explained it best when she stated that there is no shortage of kitchen knives in this country. We speak out because we believe men can change.

I can say that there have been numerous encounters with seedy men harassing me in which I told them off and another man, who stood by the entire time, came up and said, “He was an ass. You sure told him.”

I am sure that the man I lectured fairly extensively in a less than passive tone blew me off. However, I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if the man standing nearby, applauding my efforts after the fact, would have said something.

What would happen if men refused to tolerate friends that yelled at women and tried to fondle them at parties? What if men made it clear that a fellow employee sexually harassing women would be miserable at the workplace until they left as long as their behavior continued?

What if one of the men in the car cruising Denver’s suburbs would have told his buddies that harassing women and responding violently was not acceptable?

I ask such things in hypothetical situations because I have yet to see men stopping the harassment and abuse of women. I also ask such things because I believe that, if men just took the chance, things could change.

After all, women have been fighting against sexism for years. It is about damn time men join in, too.