Uncensored Feminista

I had something happen to me last night that really bothered me, whereas a long conversation ensued with my boyfriend about it and we both came to the conclusion that men and women see things completely different on this topic.

Last night my boyfriend, my stepson, and I went out to dinner at this really cute hamburger joint that we all like. There were two older men sitting at the table in front of us and they sat facing each other. At one point during our dinner I decided to get up to grab some ketchup for my fries. As I was walking back to our table, I noticed that one of the men at the table was completely turned around in his chair and they were both sitting there staring at me.  What’s worse is that they weren’t really staring at me but at my boobs. This really bothered me a lot. It made me feel uncomfortable, it made me feel small, and it made me feel like a piece of meat. Objectification at it’s worst. I sat down, made a loud comment to my boyfriend about how men who stare at boobs have no life, and they quickly left,  I’m assuming because they had been caught.

I then started asking my boyfriend questions about that mainly along the lines of why the fuck men have to do that when it clearly doesn’t work and only makes the woman feel uncomfortable and self-conscious. He claims that he feels that staring at a woman should be looked upon as a compliment, not as an insult or as harassment.  Are we really supposed to swoon over guys who stare at our tits as if they were the juciest piece of meat they’ve seen in a long time?  Is it really that hard for some men to understand that this kind of behavior is completely inappropriate and not complimentary whatsoever?

I love my boyfriend but in our conversation he decided to compare this kind of visual harassment to calling a woman beautiful, and he really doesn’t seem to understand that the way something is executed is key. Yes, you could call a woman beautiful, but if that’s the first thing you say to her it’s going to come off as a cheap pick-up line and not be viewed positively at all. There’s more to women then their beauty, and in my opinion, people who are considered the most beautiful of all can be pretty ugly because of how they view life and their status in this world.  I think I did make him see the error of his ways.  I tried, as gently a I could, to explain to him that women like to feel as if there’s more to them than just their looks, and that calling a woman beautiful right off the bat is not a good start.  I told him that if you like a woman, and you want to get to know her better, you get to know her first and then tell her she’s beautiful.  Make her feel as if she’s important and matters to you.

The thing is that these guys didn’t really care about me, they didn’t care that I was with my family, and they didn’t care that they were not only disrespecting me but disrespecting the man who in their minds could have been my husband in front of what could have been our child.  Those are men who just don’t care, have no respect for anyone, and did what they did because of their misogynistic views, and it’s these kinds of things that I’m trying to teach my stepson not to do, with a very big long explanation of how doing this is not showing women that you like or love them, but is showing them how much you disrespect them.