Don't tell me to stay indoors

Just a few words about this post: I got some very nasty comments on this. I don't detest all men and I am close to many men. But the truth is, there are many men who DO behave this way in public and it's done a great deal of harm in my life and that of others. I can't pretend it isn't happening. What I'm saying is really misunderstood, and that incident I wrote about was a complicated relationship and life often contradicts itself, life can be offensive, can't it? White can be black and vice versa, you know what I mean? I just don't feel completely "safe" anymore expressing my feelings because I think it's taken wrong. But anyway.......



I went to this horrid place on 23rd street called the Comfort Diner. There used to be a much nicer one on East 86th street. These waiters kept making eyes at me and staring very intensely at me as they walked by, and then some of the patrons. The way men look at women is so disgusting......even if they're good looking, they do it in a way that's intimidating, invasive, and it's a subtle way of them to express their power in the world, their dominance. And in turn, we're supposed to feel grateful that they think we're pretty, if that's the point. Truthfully, it's a worse experience if the guy is scuzzy but even if not.....I walked out of that place really, really mad and with a terrible headache. Yet, rather than tell these men to change their behavior or punishing them, women are told not to go to certain places, stay indoors, or not to go into a place alone because then they're allegedly putting themselves in danger. Some behavior, I know, is plain stupid in a dangerous world, but why aren't these men told to stay indoors?