verbal

Maria

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Some days ago I took a cab to get home from work. Some cab drivers are talkative and I generally don’t mind because I’m talkative myself, so I didn’t mind answering this man’s questions which started pretty broad (as usual) then became more and more personal. We got to the topic of romantic relationships, then the man started asking about my sexual relationships, and I tried to answer vaguelly because I was obviously unconfortable but I didn’t want to seem “uncool” or rude if i told him I don’t wanna talk about this anymore. But I didn’t tell him and this jerk continued asking sexual questions until I said “I don’t wanna answer this question, let’s talk about something else”. I hate that I did this, because by asking to change the subject he believed I somehow stil wanted to know about his sexual life or that he could continue aking about mine. I got off the cab as fast as I was close to my house but because of the rush I forgot a piece of my luggage in his car. The next day this man called me so that we could meet up and he could give me back my piece of luggage. I reluctantly agreed to meet him, mostly because my luggage was important to me. When we met, this idiot made me pay him a stupid fee for him moving to the meeting place to give me my stuff back, stuff that I wouldn’t have forgotten if he hadn’t been fricking creepy and disgusting during the ride! I paid him his stupid fee to just get over with it. I guess I’m writing this because I’m really mad at myself because I wasn’t brave enough to tell him clearly to shut up during the car ride and that I ended up paying extra money just for him to fix something that this man himself caused!

Aslı

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I was in a relationship with a man from US and in the beginning he was so different from the men i knew since I was from a highly conservative country. I was even shocked when he was okay with me studying abroad for 6 months and didn’t break up with me for it. Even this shows how undeveloped the society was and how much i was used to it. Then one day we had a conversation about homosexualism and he kept defending his homophobia based on me being unexperienced and how i don’t know anything. I don’t even know if that was coming from his feelings about me being from this 3rd world country or me being this little girl that can not possibly be right but appearently it was not about the topic anymore. And the same night there was a protest about not cutting the trees in my home city for a gold mine and i was supporting it to the end and writing letters to unesco all day. He just saw a post about it and said “It’s not gonna work anyways it didn’t work for Gezi Park protest they still cut down that one tree.” I explained him that eventhough people died in Gezi Park and it is seen negatively it actually worked and there is no shopping mall in the place of the park that he walks through everyday and maybe this protest can work too. He just said “No it didn’t they still cut down that tree you don’t know shit.” After that I just asked him for some empathy at least since it is my home city. “And that is why women should not be in decision making positions because you are simply thinking with your emotions.” was the answer i got. It was all like the good old sexism I’ve been reading and listening about and I never thought that it could be me in a position like that with him. It does not have to be a physical act or extreme words, sexism can be in these little arguments that can be ignored and moved on. But it is there. People said “At least he is loyal to you or he’s not a bad person” in his defense and they were right. But it made me question my opinions and the risk of believing that he was right even one time was an insult to my being.

Fiona

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Walked into the train station behind a woman. Man shouts “oi, fit!” at her. She confronts him about his behaviour, telling him he should keep his opinion of people’s bodies to himself. He tells her she should be grateful for the compliment and he has a “right to his own opinion. He is shouting and stood up and is moving towards her so I stand next to her and say he should try “have a good day” next time rather than “oi, fit” and that he should keep his opinions to himself. He continues shouting over both of us even when we’re calmly saying “don’t shout at me”. Then because he’s been called out he starts insulting her saying “you’re not that fit anyway, I was being generous” He keeps shouting “ugly bitch” at her while we stand our ground, telling him that’s not how you talk to people. The train came so we escaped. She thanked me for the back up. I was shaking with adrenaline when I sat down on the train. Other people were on the platform though I didn’t see any station staff. Those who were there stayed away.

Lucy

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I was at a club a couple of weeks ago, and this guy came up to me and told me to smile. I gave him the worst look I had ever made, but he still continued to make the ‘smile’ gesture, until I glared at him and mouthed ‘why’ and he backed off, but didn’t look like he understood in the slightest. Later that night, me and my friend were walking to the bus stop and we were continually harassed, and especially her who was wearing a low-cut top, of which one guy decided that it was okay for him to yell out ‘nice boobs … both of you!!!’ in the middle of Old Street Roundabout. I later said to my friend to cover up just because the harassment was becoming consistent and I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable, and then she asked me a question that is continuously on my mind ‘they’re the ones being inappropriate, I should not have to cover myself up to stop their idiotic and vulgar behaviour’. So true.