Are You Talking To Me?

For anyone who has ever been to New York City, you’ll understand that pedestrians flood the streets and sidewalks and can be expected to be seen everywhere- all of the time. So imagine my surprise when I’m crossing a busy intersection (26th St and 6th Ave), perfectly within my appropriate time to cross a street, and a car comes blindly whizzing around a left turn. For those of you who don’t actually know me, I’m not easily shaken by moron drivers. I’ve had cabbies try to intimidate me, busses honk at me… but when it’s my turn to walk, I know it and I take it. Nevertheless, the speed at which this guy was flying towards me, made even my pedestrian nerves of steel hesitate in my tracks. Without much thought I threw my hands in the air and cried out ‘Seriously?!’… And wouldn’t you know it, the driver (in his early twenties) rolled his eyes at his friend in the passenger seat and then called out ‘Move that Fat Ass, Sugar’.

While he is clearly a novice at slinging cowardly insults from his car window, I was still enraged by the standard I’ve observed for criticizing someone of a specific gender. When I see people criticizing men, they hurl insults that reflect that person’s intelligence. I’m sure we can all think of times we’ve seen an upset woman calling a man a fool, stupid, or useless. Men are attacked on their competence, their ability to contribute to society. I suppose this is how we establish and judge their worth.

However, women are attacked on their appearance. Perhaps that is still what we gauge a woman’s value to be determined by. Women are called fat and ugly when under siege. Whether they be politicians, pop artists or that annoying coworker two cubicles down, it’s the go-to smear. Today was a perfect example, I insinuated the driver was an idiot, he jumped straight to a derogatory comment about my butt. Tragically typical.

Sadly this isn’t my first experience with this type of response. Last year I was at a concert, and I was trying to get to the aisle. On my way out, the couple I passed groaned a bit. When I returned, and politely said ‘Excuse Me’ the man put his hands up and said ‘WHOA, YOU CAN’T FIT THROUGH HERE’ and proceeded to puff out his cheeks making it clear that he meant I couldn’t fit because I was simply- too fat. I pushed through as he made obnoxious sound effects and I tried desperately to hide the tears when I got back to my seat.

Now, let’s be clear about something. Yes, I do have personal battles with my weight which I find to be fairly typical among women. However, I still have an ‘average’ sized body. I don’t need to shop in stores of extended sizes, I fit very comfortably in airplanes and movie theatre seats. To my knowledge when someone describes me to their friends they never use words like ‘She was the fat one with brown hair’. Yet on multiple occasions, perfect strangers have slung hateful slams against my appearance and weight.

Why is it such an obvious condemnation against a woman? If someone were to call me stupid I would laugh in their face and wouldn’t think twice about it. The comment strikes no nerve with me, I would give it the same significance as someone saying ‘Hey, you’re purple!’ It is that ridiculous of a notion. But someone saying, ‘Damn, get your fat ass out of the way… Don’t try fitting through here, Tubb-o… What did you say? I don’t speak cow…’ That is enough to make a strong, confident woman like me crumble into a mass of teary self-loathing. Can someone please tell me how this has come to be? Because really, I'm stumped.