I understand this site is mostly men and that a good portion of those men probably won’t truly understand how ridiculously prominent this is until they’ve walked in a female’s shoes.

I make this post cause I got my first apartment and my dad literally came in and made sure it was “pervert proofed” as he called it.

So like the awesome dad he is, he switched out my door screws and added an extra lock cause the original one isn’t a deadbolt, this is standard and not unique to my situation of course. But then he started looking for *camera infrared* cause I guess male landlords will put cameras to spy on female tenants. He also checked for microphones as well. I was disgusted when I found out through my dad that one of his coworkers had gone through the court process cause her pervert landlord had been spying on her. Disgusted..but not surprised.

Let’s continue with other ways I’ve had to “pervert proof” for the majority of my life.

At my old job, women weren’t allowed to carry things to people’s cars or trash to the dumpster alone. You had to use a buddy system. Why? Cause a chick at a BestBuy down the street had an attempted kidnapper when he asked her to help with a computer tower.

I cannot go to gas stations past 10pm. I don’t go because 3 times now I’ve had very creepy and threatening experiences with guys trying to “hit on me” when really they’re just belligerently telling me to ride with them. Two of those times I’ve been threatened.

Obviously in college there’s a 101 ways women are advised to protect themselves. Travel in groups, always watch your drink, don’t go home alone, use a friend instead of an Uber if possible and if you have to use Uber make sure it’s your driver and that you can jump out if he turns on you. Etc etc.

In highschool my mom always told me to sit at the front of the city bus so that the driver can help me when a man inevitably creeps on me, threatens me, or flashes me. Two of those things did happen within a year later. Bonus points, she told me to always make sure I’m not being followed when I get off as well. Thankfully I haven’t been.

In middle school I started to get hit on when I hit puberty and this is when I faced the brunt of male perversion at *twelve* years old and had to learn techniques to dodge it which is despicable.

Now it’s rubbed in my face now that girls are used as symbols of commodities for advertisement. What I mean by this is when girls my ages get their tits pushed out and are plastered next to whatever product that needs to be sold. There’s a radio ad I hear constantly for a bar that says “college girls go here” as a form of advertisement and it’s so gross and predatory.

I hate it. I really do. I understand most male violence is on other guys, but women get the brunt of male perversion and it’s terrible and needs to change. Societal values have changed before and this isn’t an exception. I know if we start frameshifting what is acceptable and normal that less people will do it. Won’t be gone forever but perhaps I wouldn’t have to be constantly plagued by this scenario.

Obligatory “not all men” in case someone hasn’t deduced that reading this.

Thank you for listening