Opinion | Navigating my life around the male gaze

Mady Dever, Opinions Editor

I was 16 years old the first time I truly felt like I wasn’t going to make it home safe. 

I was in London on a trip with friends from high school. We were out one night — maybe we saw a theater performance, went to dinner or just perused the city’s historic streets. The details don’t really matter.  The four of us walked, arm in arm, smiling, happy, giggling in our innocence and youth. 

Until a man began walking behind us for much longer than I was comfortable with. 

“Is he following us?” I thought. “No, I’m just being paranoid.” 

But he kept treading close behind, seemingly drunk. Then he started shouting at us — nothing specific enough to remember, as all the comments blur together over the years. 

All I remember was the stalking, the hollering, the fear. There were no stores open to sneak into and hide. No other people or crowds to blend into. I have always been taught to have an escape plan: don’t go alone, walk in groups, call when you get there. We picked up our pace and turned down a street until he was gone, skillfully remembering not to take the same path to our apartment, for fear he would follow. 

I was 14 years old, riding on the subway when I first realized how men perceive female bodies. Coming home from school, I stood with two of my friends on the Los Angeles Metro, backpacks strapped on, no taller than 5 feet. Two men began looking at my friends and I, slowly; up and down, picking us apart with their eyes, reminding me of the wolves I’d read about in fairy tales. 

“How old do you think they are?” one man blatantly said aloud to the other. “12?”

They sneered and snickered as though the younger we were, the better. My friends and I switched cars on the next stop, glancing over our shoulders to make sure they weren’t trailing behind. 

Now 22 years old, I still cannot shake the thought in the back of my mind that anytime I go somewhere alone, I am putting myself in danger. Further than that, if something were to happen to me, I can’t help but feel it would be my own fault for existing in the same space as the opposite sex — for putting myself in danger that really wouldn’t be dangerous if I were a man. 

While I am thankful I have never been in worse situations than those described above, society has presented time and time again that I could easily be targeted next. So I, along with all women, always have to be on the lookout.

And after countless health and safety videos my schools have shown — every year since middle school up until The Healthy Panther at Chapman — I begin to question my male friendships, too. I hate that society is built this way; that it has convinced women that we should guard ourselves, even among people we trust. But according to those videos, news headlines and general precedent, most instances of sexual assault come from someone you know. 

And the cat-calling remains present in every woman’s life. I really wish there were a better term for this, but then again, I wish this didn’t have to be a term at all. From crude comments and piercing stares to whistles and shouting, I’ve never been able to understand the end goal. Do they want me to respond? Should I wave? Should I smile because a woman’s appearance is what we’re conditioned to tailor to the male gaze? 

What do you do when someone is yelling unrequested, often-vulgar comments from across the street? What more does a whistle say than the male establishing confidence, arrogance and dominance over the female? 

When I find refuge from these seemingly dangerous situations and am mentally and physically in a place of safety, my emotions flutter from pure anger to sadness. I’m so angry that, one, I let myself be so deeply affected by the words and actions of a stranger, and two, that I have to walk through life just waiting for someone to comment on my body, stare at me like I’m prey or intentionally make me feel unsafe. And then the sadness kicks in. Sadness, because I don't think I’ll ever feel fully safe walking down a street alone without one fleeting moment of fear. 

Sometimes I feel like I am gaslighting myself in thinking, “Oh, I’m being over-the-top. Sexual assault has never happened to me personally, so what do I have to be scared of?” I hear the arguments, “Not all men are bad” or, “It was just a compliment.” 

But the thing is, nothing in society has proven this won’t happen to me. I leave my house armed with my mental list of ways to stay protected — assuming I could be hurt or preparing for verbal harassment. And although it shouldn’t be, it’s somehow my job to prevent that from happening.