i wish i was a man, so i could have this world all to myself

on catcalling, regret, and relearning silence.

Aug 15, 2024

Dear whomever,

I wouldn’t categorize myself as an outgoing - or unreserved - person.

A longtime introvert, my conversations turn out brief. Around strangers, I am only a set of eyes. I’d say, if I had to, that I am quiet and careful, perhaps even timid. It’s rare that I come alive, so it tends to surprise people. But it does happen, the loss of control. Usually only when I feel a specific emotion.

The story goes as follows: it was a Sunday night - the suns unbearable heat had retired, gifting us with a cool, summer evening. I keep forgetting I live in a city: but just an hour from midnight, the streets were still buzzing. There are moments in time I believe I made the right decision: I belong in Amman. I care for it, deeply. Everyone’s always running for Europe or America - but why ever leave home?

But the vision is often destroyed, and quickly.

So I just had dinner with a friend. Italian. She didn’t like the spaghetti, but I was happy my caprese salad. I offered her a ride home after we split the bill, made a mental map in my head for the route, and planned to fall into bed as soon as my duties were over.

Something disrupted my attention, though, as we walked to my car. This city can be loud, yes, but there is an instinctual feeling - a person knows, when they’re being spoken to… or spoken at, in this instance.

One of the most common forms of catcalling in my country happens through a car window. My friend says that it’s the worst form of catcalling she’s ever experienced, and she has traveled around a lot. It’s because of the power dynamic - right? - they are safe within the confines of the car, and you are alone on the street, unprotected, at risk and afraid.

I’m good with my surroundings. Though I often come off as… well, ditzy… when I am alone in the streets (or with other women), I know what I’m supposed to do. I’m focused. It’s different alongside men, but alone I’ve learned to step up and take care of my companions - a trait I’ve built from years of taking girls to their first flea market after the “this is so cute, please take me thrifting with you!” leads to their hands shaking and their eyes, wide. The flea markets and thrift stores are overwhelming, here, at least - I’ve become a common guide through that craziness.

This alertness has benefited me very much during my travels. It makes me careful but daring, and I tend to remember routes very quickly. I know when to leave a situation, and can often gauge who is nice enough to ask something, and who isn’t.

But, reader, I was comfortable, this time, with a full belly and a mind thinking mostly of dropping into bed, in a neighborhood I’d been to before that was known for its openness. And the street was half-busy, with a man in to the right watering his plants, another checking under his hood - so why worry? My car was right there.

I heard that voice and went blind with rage.

That’s how it always happens: the adrenaline hits me, and truly, from how strongly I feel the emotions, I often remember very little about what happened, afterwards. I don’t even remember any of his words, only his mannerisms, and the fear he instilled in me, and the fact that my friend was beside me.

The tactic I often go to is pulling out my phone, and shouting “Do you want your picture to go to the police?” and this usually works - it’s such a surprise to them that they drive away quickly, but this time the pair in the car laughed in response, which angered me, so I stepped onto the street and kicked the car. I’ve never done this before, but, yes, indeed, I kicked his stupid red car as hard as I could and said a very, very bad word in Arabic, which still didn’t spite him.

I don’t know why.

I suppose it angered me that I wasn’t able to make him as afraid as he made me. In fact, he was so unaffected that he took this chance to step out of the car to “inspect the damage” as I finally decided to walk away, shouting behind me “Ya Allah (By God), I really hope you ruined my car.”

I rounded a corner as the adrenaline faded and fear actually came to me, red but so cold. I was frustrated and immediately embarrassed. Why the fuck did I do that? He was speaking to us still, though his speech was a bit too fast for me to understand. I felt like an idiot; I had succumbed to the trap, perhaps, the one our parents talk about, about how what the boys want is a reaction - and I gave them a lovely one. They would laugh about it as they drove away, tell their friends about the girl that kicked their car in retribution for their disgusting remarks. I’d soon be a punchline, I just knew it.

I was humiliated.

I said sorry to my friend, and my guilt was heightened by the fact that we we were just talking about how hard it was to be a foreigner here. A part of me loves this country, but I cannot deny the way our cultural and deep-rooted sexual repression has affected the men - and, notably, the ways that repression, in turn, affects their views of foreign women. They can be nasty, unabashed, with the idea that the foreigners, “without religion” and the confines of a purity-driven culture, will give in to their nastiness much more easily than an Arab girl.

I say sorry over and over again, and she simply laughs, saying, “I just didn’t expect that from you,” which is something I’ve heard before.

Once, just a handful of months ago, during my mom’s visit, I was with my two aunts and cousins, and we were catcalled the same way - through a car window. Though this time, the car was parked, and when I glared at the collection of boys, one poked his tongue out at me in the most sexual, disgusting way - so I started shouting.

I am not so close with my aunts and cousins. My mom had to haul me away, but my vision was dark with my anger. And I repeated, to the men: “Aren’t you embarrassed of yourselves? Aren’t you embarrassed of yourselves?” (Sounds better in Arabic, of course.) They argued: “We didn’t do anything! What did we do?”

It was a busy street, and the whole thing caused a commotion, with store owners urging the boys in the blue car to leave, and my mom pulling me into the safety of a shop.

And - silence.

Though at face-value I’d done a brave thing, my companions didn’t know what to do with me, like that, angry. It is, I digress, a juxtaposition from my normal behavior. My hands always shake afterwards - even minutes later. My cousins say it: “Didn’t expect that from you,” and my aunt looks at me in an uncomfortable way. I pretend to be busy with one of the t-shirts.

I felt, I remember, a deep sort of shame.

You think standing up to your oppressors is noble, but they win, I suppose, in getting a reaction out of you. Before the boys in the red car I thought I was teaching them all to stop doing it - by being angry and standing up to them. I thought it was a noble act - that through me, they wouldn’t bother other girls. We just have to stand up to them. But after the night I kicked that car, I called my mom on the way home, and cried. I did not feel noble or brave, I felt… used, for lack of better word.

living with my regret

So, it’s been two weeks. I haven’t gotten over it.

Usually I am able to move on from the harassment. It happens often enough, but I suppose it’s been a while since a scenario like this one. My neighborhood is safe; for the past few months, I walk everyday at sunset (and sometimes much later) with my headphones on blast with no issues, no fear, no glancing over my shoulders. My last months of thrifting have gone by with no particularly uncomfortable incidents. I traveled to Japan and nothing went wrong. It does happen, it does - it did. But this one came fresh, like a papercut against newly healed skin.

Did I wrongly assume it was done, that we’d grown, that the boys had learned?

Is that why I’m even more disappointed, frustrated, and upset?

I’ve never been stuck on a situation, like this. I did something I’d never done; a sort of pathetic, toddler sort of reaction to being threatened. I should’ve done something smarter, stronger, or better yet - I should’ve just ignored them. But I didn’t. I didn’t. I can’t get over the fact that I didn’t.

I don’t want to go back to that neighborhood. I actively drive around it. I’ve been catcalled my entire life; why would - is - this time any different? I’m consumed by it all: I’ve tried to research why the hell it happens. Did they like that I was angry? Is it better to be complacent? Which tactic is the best, for these kinds of stupid everyday issues we must deal with?

I feel as though I’m looking at myself through a male sort of lens. Like, the boys don’t quite get it. It never happens in front of them, so our stories come off as overreactions. Of course. A man is a shield, in this country, though they don’t quite understand how much of that statement is true. Sure, some may nod along and say, “I know it’s hard,” but they don’t really get it.

When you are beside a man you are safe, the boys don’t look your way, they respect their male counterpart, and thus, give you some respect. It is a different experience entirely - so how could one believe something they just can’t see?

These days, I look at myself that way: I watch my body step onto the street and kick a red car as hard as it can, and roll my eyes. You’re overreacting.

Am I trying to relearn silence? I think of my fourteen-year-old self, a heated feminist and so utterly angry, who cocooned into herself as she started dating, as she started living, as she started realizing that there was no way out of the maze. Plus, she grew tired: I was always shouting and no one was listening.

And boys don’t like too strong of a feminist.

But she comes out, that frustrated fourteen-year-old who wrote paragraphs and paragraphs on feminism on early-Facebook, who fought against her peers on Messenger, who was loud and brash about women’s rights. She comes out when I feel a deep color of anger like the one I feel when I’m harassed alongside my friends. Perhaps an interesting revelation could be that I never do it around boys - around boyfriends or guy friends or anyone else, even if perhaps it does happen.

The secret is that it does, but of course to a lesser extent: easier for my trained eye to catch the glances and the mouth movements and the disgusting, sexually backed gaze. A boy wouldn’t notice that - why would he even look for it? And I, truthfully, would not want to hurt a boy I love’s pride, by exhibiting anger that should be his, and only his to express.

Beside a man you are his. I’m sorry, but this is the life we live. It’s why, like I said before, you tend to be left alone in the streets when you’re walking beside a man. You become an accessory, a piece of property, which protects you - man does not overtake man. They are equals, they respect one another. If I were to come out angry and shouting, I would be overtaking his position. Part of the food chain, I become, clearly below MAN.

The anger over his property being demeaned would be his to express, not hers.

what are men trying to do, when they do things like this?

A preface: I have tried to access research papers, but have come up empty due to my lack of currently pursuing a degree. (if you have tips or websites where I could access research, please leave them for me, because I am craving so deeply to learn, to study, to maybe add in some citations). I only have what Google will give me.

Some articles that frustrated me more than educated me:

I can only think of other women’s descriptions of catcalling that truly resonate with me. Particularly, this quotation by Alice Minium:

“His comments are not compliments, or even propositions.
They are declarations of ownership. They are threats.
They are the intrusive thumb of male privilege and patriarchal violence, reminding me of my place as I move around within public space.

They are the put-down, the screw-you, the worthless-slur, the great derision that is a constant, omnipresent reminder that society allows male sexual violence to function commonly as a social norm.

It is the constant reminder that I should always be scared.

That I am never safe.

That someone always wants to hurt me, and that society will always, always turn its face the other way, as seen by the normalcy with which men can publicly deride me with confidence and gusto in their threats.”

Alice says everything that I wanted to say and more in that short quotation. The boys in the red car most likely saw my kicking their car as a little joke to relay to their friends, a story to tell - perhaps they infantilized me, sexualized the act of bratiness. I must live with that. They imagine me that way because they already saw me as a plaything the moment they stopped the car beside me. It’s why they stopped the car in the first place. I was not brave or noble or scary. I was decidedly below them - it’s why they laughed.

I wondered, after, if perhaps they wanted to ask for directions but did so in a shitty way that I misunderstood. Maybe you might wonder the same. In that case I will share a final story - a mere few days before the red car, I had to leave the house at a late 1:30AM to get my meds, and parked in an empty road to search Google maps for where to go, since my usual pharmacy was closed. A taxi pulled up, with two men in the front seat, and they asked me a question.

I did not startle. It was late, the streetlight was out, there was no one around. They said, hello, hi, sorry, and I asked: do you need help?

After some conversation, I knew where they wanted to go and drove there, with the pair tailing behind as they did not have wifi. We laughed together, they said thank you, I was incredibly kind and not at all threatened or angry or anything.

So, I did not misconstrue the boys in the red car. Just like you do not misconstrue your lover, when they feel you up in the middle of night, when they look at you with their bedroom eyes, when they express sexuality around you. Because one’s intentions are clear, and as the receiver, reader, your body, it tells you more than you need to know.

My body went straight into fight-or-flight, just at the sound of his voice. My vision blurred, my anger fueled me, but my body was clear, she told me you are being threatened. Just like she did when I was deep into a toxic relationship - even when my mind didn't understand it was abuse, she knew it was. Just like she did once at a doctor’s office, when he told me to take off my shirt for a test I’ve never taken my shirt off for before, and my friend suggested maybe it wasn't technically harassment...

We tend to doubt ourselves. I suppose womanhood is a bubble other people simply can’t understand, so people (even women) are always like “well are you sure?”

Maybe we just want to ignore it, to forget, to pretend it’s not there. I know I wanted to. I know I wish I did.

But we can’t.

We just can’t.

I don’t know what else to say.

The words end here.

With love,
Amal

PS: leave me a comment, an idea, a thought, or quote. Whatever you’d like - I just love hearing back from you.

With Love, Amal

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