attack

Cleo Jackson

In summer this year, I was locking up my bike on university campus. It was a hot day so I was wearing a shortish dress with bare legs -not that that matters in the least but I guess that was the catalyst for what happened next. A young guy, total stranger and likely a student was standing outside a newsagent a few feet away and he was staring at me as I fumbled with my bike keys. I looked up because I could feel his eyes on me, and he sneered at me, ‘you’re a dirty little slapper’. It caught me off guard and I said ‘what?’ and he began a tirade of demeaning insults, calling me a ‘slag’ and a ‘disgusting whore’. An unprovoked, unexpected misogynistic attack that I naively believed had ceased in our society, from a man I’d never seen before and never see again upset me more than I ever would have imagined.