Briefcase on the Kitchen Table

The musings of a millenial midwestern lawyer and mom.

“Hey Baby” nothin’.

First off, I am sorry I have not written in a while friends. It has been a very busy semester.

So, this post has nothing to do with being married, living in St. Louis, going to law school, or making cookies. This post is purely about being a woman. More importantly, it is mostly directed at men.

Every morning I walk three blocks from Ave and my apartment to the Metro station. I love being able to take public transit every day; some of my favorite people I have met in St. Louis have been individuals I talk to on the train. With that said, it never fails that at least one day, usually more like two or three days, every week when I pass in front of the men that stand at the bus stop by the metro station I get a “Hey Baby…”. It has started happening so often that I feel myself cringe as I walk towards the station, just wanting to hit those steps leading down to the train without a, “Damn girl…”.

To put it plainly, I find it demeaning. You don’t even know my name. What makes you think you are allowed to examine my body like I am bus-stop poster?

Maybe you are trying to say I look good that day or that you think I am pretty. I don’t really care why you are doing it.

You can blame it on whatever you like. Hormones. A bad upbringing. An over-sexualized culture. A general lack of human decency. I don’t really care why you think it’s okay.

You may be a great person. You may not be implying anything by your comment. You might even feel bad if you knew how uncomfortable you were making me. I don’t really care what you think..

You may not be aware that comments like these are what make women nervous to walk alone in anything but absolute daylight in a very public area. You may not think about the fact that in that moment, we know as much about you as you do about us and we have no way to know if you are just an insensitive commentator or someone who thinks they can sexually assault women. I don’t really care what you think.

You may think this sounds paranoid. You may think that we should know logically that there are more non-rapists in the world than there are rapists. You may ask that, as we are walking alone, feeling like a piece of meat, we take a second to logically assess the risk. I don’t really care what you think.

You may not realize that this puts us in a catch-22. That we can ignore your comments possibly egging you on to make more in order to get a reaction. That we could always smile at you, hoping that you are one of the nice guys, risking that if you are not one of the nice guys you will take this as an invitation to follow us. That we could always tell you to fuck off, risking that you may have a highly confrontational and possibly violent reaction to having a woman speak to you with as much disrespect as you just showed her. I don’t really care what you think.

I have a wonderful husband. He has put years of love, support, date nights, back rubs, doing the dishes, watching my movies, listening to my music, and overall-effort into getting to say “Hey Baby” to me whenever he wants. You, however, have not.

Before you even think of checking out my backside or inspecting my chest, say hello, shake my hand while looking at my face, tell me your name, and ask how I am doing today. Most importantly, if you do all of those things and I am clearly not interested in conversation, walk away. Because I am a human being and that’s what I deserve.

Christine's avatar

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Christine

7 responses to ““Hey Baby” nothin’.”

  1. BlueFoot Avatar
    BlueFoot

    So first you complained about compliments in PUBLIC, as if being in PUBLIC you expect to still be PRIVATE. Sorry, but this is public. Just as someone saying “Hi” to me in the morning, I have no control over that.

    But to make matters worse, you then couple this catcalling to rape, which has been prove to be extremely rare. You even admit it sounds paranoid, which it is, 100% paranoia. Only 25% of rapes happen by strangers, of of that only 1% of women are raped a year.

    So to put this in an abstract, objective view. You are out in the morning (the lowest time of day for rape), and a stranger says something (strangers make up 25% of rapes). You are looking at less than .25% chance he is a rapist. Actually, only 1/3 of rapes happen in the morning, so take that down to about .08% chance to be raped by that stranger.

    So your “paranoia” as you call it, is that when someone says, “Hey Cutie…” you are worried that he might be part of the .08% of the population that will rape you then. Yes, that is paranoia.

    Reply
    1. Person Avatar
      Person

      It is very much a Catch 22 for women. Take all reasonable caution as society directs, you are paranoid. Then if you’re not paranoid and something does happen, “they were asking for it.”

      Also, it’s clear that you have no idea what you’re really saying. In a vacuum, what you are insisting may be correct. But look at those numbers and apply them to an average life time. Because you know, rape threat isn’t something that’s isolated to one particular incident and women do not live only one year. That’s a 0.08%, but multiply that over a life time.

      Though, I’m sure that’d be very convenient. Hey! I dodged the rape flag! Now I never have to deal with it again! Thank you based RNG!

      I do also think it’s very funny how you equate a cat-call to saying “Hi”. “Hi” doesn’t have any sexual implications or indicate sexual obligations. “Hi” isn’t something that you’d have targeted at you simply because you’re of one gender or another. “Hi” isn’t generally something said in a practice to exert power over someone you deem more vulnerable than yourself. If you respond to “Hi”, that’s not an equivalent of agreeing to be followed. If you do not respond to “Hi” you are not automatically called a slut or a bitch or at possible risk for inviting violent behavior towards yourself.

      Cat-calls are a way for men to exert power over people they perceive weaker then them (IE- women). And they’re prevalent enough to where they disturb the daily lives of quite possibly billions of women who have to restructure their entire lives around this “what if”. And as convenient as it would be for that 0.08 dice roll to happen only once, for many women that’s a dice roll they have to take every day. And one happening can easily claim your life, or leave you psychologically scarred for life. Then, you get to go through the greatness of pursuing a case against your rapist. I suggest you do some Googling to see how those usually go. IE- Even an eleven year old girl can be called “a spider trying to lure men into her web”. Or something like Steubenville where even with a video of your aggressors bragging about what they did and how you’re dead, your friends and neighbors will not only socially isolate you, but create a website to how terrible of a person you are.

      As a further comparison to how real this is, when I was in high school young guys would only consider carrying some kind of self-defense weapon if they were going to some seedy high-crime area. Girls my age, however, were busy trying to figure out how to properly use a set of car keys as improv brass knuckles to keep themselves safe while walking to their car at night after their part-time job at the mall. They were also told by male teachers that they should check their trunk and the back seat of their car before getting in.

      And before you go on the tangent that I am equaling cat-calling to a rape attempt, I am not. I am simply explaining to you why it’s not paranoid at all for women to see them as threatening. As the author explained, it’s impossible to know if the person is simply an insensitive douchebag with too much time on their hands, or crazy and capable of causing harm. Considering one time is too many times, the 0.08 daily dice roll is a lot more threatening than you make it out to be.

      Reply
  2. The Married Lady Avatar
    The Married Lady

    Blue Foot, thanks for your commentary. I am going to respectfully disagree with most of what you said but I do appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment.

    First off, I understand your pointing out that I am in public and therefore assume a certain amount of risk, However, there are still certain kinds of treatment that is not okay, even if in public. If I was at work and a male employee said either of these things to me without invitation he could be subject to reprimand. That expectation of behavior should not have to stop where the public sidewalk begins.

    Second, I do not “couple” cat-calling with rape. I am merely pointing out that there is way no to know what sort of individual you may or not be. I acknowledge in the post itself that there is a very slim chance that a person making such a comment would actually be a threat at all. I, for one though, am not willing to take the gamble that every person who makes a comment isn’t “that person” and I would hope my friends and family who have similar experiences would not take such a gamble either.

    Lastly, if your major takeaway from this post was that I am afraid of being raped, you need to re-read it. The major issue I have is that I am a human being and before taking inventory of my physical assets or seeing if I am single, try being polite.

    Reply
  3. Julián Avatar
    Julián

    Blue Foot – while your comment is probably well-meaning, it misses the crux of the problem. Get familiar with the concept of “rape culture” – women don’t want to feel brave when they go out into the streets: they want to feel *free*. Cat-calling and wolf whistles aren’t rape, but they are abuse, and they are sexual harassment.

    This isn’t like the glow of self-esteem you, as a man, could possibly (although not probably) get if a woman compliments you on the street with something like “nice ass” – anyone would feel threatened, vulnerable and violated if a stranger, who they have no idea whether they are nice guys or potential rapists, were to call you out on your sexual assets.

    Women are subjected, on a daily basis, to this: to being treated like an object, like a walking pair of breasts. If 1% of women are ever raped in their lifetime, that’s 1% too many, and the culture that allows cat-callers to go unpunished is the same culture that blames the victims of rape for “asking for it”, “dressing like a slut” o “egging him on”.

    We live in a world where women are told what to do to avoid rape, instead of men being told to not rape.

    Reply
  4. Jamie Avatar
    Jamie

    Seriously! This is the reason I walk to my car at night with my keys nestled in my fist ready to strike if necessary! I work at a hospital and the other day I was walking to my car when someone pulled that “hey baby” thing and I wanted to just be like “really??” It’s also a matter of what exactly they are trying to accomplish by throwing inappropriate greetings my way. Do you think I am going to stop dead in my tracks and throw you a big hug and kiss and ask for a date because you grotesquely “hey baby’d” me? It’s almost like the fact that those comments are met with disgust that gets them going…

    Reply
  5. William Avatar
    William

    Might i suggest headphones? They kind of block out the world. No one would really care, and no one would be able to talk to you without looking weird. Also you get to listen to your favorite music. Its a win win win win.

    Reply
  6. Erin Avatar
    Erin

    BlueFoot and William are examples of why this is a subject women find very difficult to discuss with the majority of men. Most men simply, sadly just don’t get it, either oversimplifying the matter and missing the point altogether or dismissing our concerns with a complete lack of consideration for the fears and feelings of people who have experienced something that they themselves will probably never be forced to confront.

    To William: Headphones are a good idea if all we’re concerned about is not being able to hear what’s being said. We’re walking past strangers (for the most part, bigger and probably stronger than we are), about whom all we know is that they are perfectly willing to exhibit behaviors that they know make us uncomfortable and even, at times, fearful, simply because they CAN. What happens if, because we don’t hear, they don’t get the rise out of us they’re hoping for? Will they escalate? And in what way? Is one of those men THE man that will follow us, marking our workplace or home? Shutting out the noise would just make us more vulnerable by making us less aware of our surroundings. Those men aren’t going to respect us, let alone protect us, so we have to do it ourselves, first and foremost by staying alert.

    To BlueFoot: I think you don’t see the harm because, while you may like to do a little harmless girl-watching and maybe express your appreciation in a way that you don’t intend to be disrespectful, you are not the kind of man who would ever hurt, let alone intentionally frighten an unsuspecting woman in public or private. But, not all males are like that. Some are cruel, disrespectful, harmful and even violent. The trouble is, we have no way of knowing the good from the bad if they all act the same, not caring how it disturbs us. I know you don’t understand this. The fact that you precede the quotes on rape statistics with the word “only” is proof of that. I would venture to guess that no one close to you about whom you deeply care has ever been sexually assaulted. To your knowledge. I hope if that were the case, “only” would cease to be of consequence.

    As for being paranoid, I don’t think, as a man, you can fully appreciate how keenly women can sometimes feel their vulnerability and natural anatomical weakness compared to men. Think of yourself as a prison inmate. You walk through the cafeteria or the yard or the tv lounge, the public areas of the prison. Maybe it’s even daytime, say 10:00 a.m. A man bigger than you, maybe several men, say, “Hey, baby” and make graphic statements expressing their appreciation of your various physical attributes and how they would like to become better acquainted with them. They may just be messing with your head. They may be serious, but they don’t intend to act on any of their comments. Or maybe, ONLY one of them will assault you ONLY one time. If the thought of that happening to you bothers you, then you have experienced a jot of what many women face in the reality that is forced upon us nearly every day of our existence.

    I’m not afraid of most men, nor do I hold them in dislike. I enjoy their company, their humor and even their often distinctly male opinions. I have found most male strangers to be friendly, helpful and courteous. But it only takes one to make me upset. One to make me afraid. One to do me harm. And if one will take it as his right to do any one of those three things, that’s one too many.

    Reply

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