Without an E

Hi there. Happy National Voter Registration Day!! It’s like Christmas, except you don’t get the day off from work or presents. Or like Thanksgiving, except you don’t get to eat yourself stupid on turkey and cranberries. Well, I suppose you could do that; it’s a free country.

Speaking of which, you’ve registered to vote in the upcoming November election, right? What’s that? You haven’t? That’s OK, there’s still time! But don’t dally, because you only have about two weeks left. All you’ve got to do is visit this website and fill out the National Mail Voter Registration Form or visit your state/local election offices and fill out the forms there. It only takes a few minutes. I registered over my lunch break a few years ago. No sweat. GO DO IT NOW THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Not sure if you’re registered? Click here.

unwinona:

And then I debated whether or not to put it on Tumblr…but I decided it was important. Because in my own way, I can (unfortunately) point out exactly what is wrong with men when they don’t realize how hard it is to be a woman. How we do not have equal opportunities and freedoms in everyday life….

I have a lot of thoughts on this blog post. 

Frankly, I am surprised I made it all the way through, though I’m glad I did. So much of it reads like the most poorly-executed humble brag I’ve ever read. This blogger seemingly has 99 problems, but attracting a ceaseless swarm of male suitors through her alluring, enigmatic beauty ain’t one. Well, that’s exactly her problem, actually, but you get what I mean. There’s only room for one at that pity party. 

More so, her indignation at being approached by men is completely unfair to the male population as a whole. No, not every man who attempts conversation with a woman is an asshole looking for a new bedfellow. It’s wrong to assume so. And, at least in my opinion, there is something alluring about a guy with the confidence to stone-cold approach a woman he doesn’t know. It doesn’t always work, and the time and place of such an approach needs to be taken into consideration (e.g. one should not walk up to a women when she’s alone late at night), but It’s something that I think is lacking in the age of internet dating.

Also, her assessment that the business man is a “real man” simply because he said he’d “beat [the boys] up” is absurd and contradictory. He’s simply found a more machismo way of saying “I think you’re pretty,” which is the exact thing she holds against other men. That’s unfair. 

But this blogger is dead on correct in her conclusion. No women — no one — deserves to be the object of hate, violence or abuse simply for saying “no.” As someone with a similar, equally terrifying public transportation story involving a deluge of unwarranted verbal harassment being hurtled in my face, I know that feeling. I know that sinking, gut-wrenching feeling that, should this altercation turn violent, you’d be powerless to stop it; that paralyzing fear rendering you a victim to a man’s verbal tirade, because doing something — anything — could escalate the situation; and that emotional release that rushes over you after it ends, a mix of terror and relief that nothing worse happened. And all for no other reason than, as the blogger states, “being female and not wanting to share.”

It’s happened to me, and it’s happened to my female friends both to lesser and greater extents. None of whom, I might add, were “asking for it.” Ask almost any woman, and at the very least — very least — she probably has a story about being called a slut or a bitch by a car full of dudes after their cat calls went unanswered. It’s unfair — hell, it’s wrong — to be made the victim for no other reason than disinterest and asserting one’s right to say “no thank you,” and it’s an experience unique to women.

So guys, I say by all means approach the ladies. But if the object of your pursuit says no, please, just leave her be.