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7/14/10

Disrespected twice by men! Am I missing something?

A few weeks ago I was in the gas station paying for gas. There was a Black man standing behind me who was clearly attracted to me, correction, attracted to my back side. He started to say what he will do to me sexually. I turned around saying "Excuse me?" and he acted like he was speaking to someone else (he folded like the punk he is). After my transaction was done I proceeded to walk out the gas station, but overheard the Middle Eastern man behind the counter ask the Black man "Why do you disrepsect your women?". The Black man responded with the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life, "Man ya'll disrespect ya'll women by having them all covered up." Needless to say, I left with a bittersweet feeling.
Fast forward to a few days ago. I'm sitting in the car waiting on my Pops to come out the store. It's summer time, so the window is down and my leg was up on the seal. Two guys walk out the store and get in the car parked next to ours. As they drive off the driver yells to me "It look like yo skin soft!" Huh? Thank the Lord they drove off before I could respond, because I'm almost sure my mouth would've gotten me into some mess.
What in the world is going on? As an African American woman I am hurt. I was disrespected by an African American man, and it took a man from the Middle East to stand up for me. Maybe I'm naive, but I would expect the African American man to understand the struggles that I face as a Black woman. I mean does he not have a mother, a grandmother, sisters, aunts, and cousins? I'm hurt because all I was to him was another big behind. He hadn't even seen my face before he started to make sexaul innuendos to me. He didn't even know my name. Then to address the guy who said my skin looks soft, trust me, by the tone of his voice it wasn't a compliment. It was completely sexual. Once again, he didn't even know my name. He didn't know my love for the community. He doesn't know I go to the Juvenile Detention in Chicago and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the youth there and he could care less. I was a piece of meat.
When did this happen? There was a point when some men would at least ask women our name. I'm not saying that all men are disrespectful. I have met (and know) men who are the epitome of a gentleman. But when I walk and drive through Chicago I am well aware that we need to do something fast. Jill Scott said it best in her poem "The Thickness", to the two men who disrespected me I am no longer their tribesmen and no longer their friend.
What are your thoughts? Why are some men so disrespectful to women? Has the media and music influenced their actions?
PSA: "Women are more their sexual beings. There is so much more than meets the eye. Yes, we are extremely beautiful, but if you can't express that in a respectful way, then please muzzle yourselves." That is all.

7 comments:

  1. I think the media has a influence on the way men and women act. If a woman thinks it is okay for men to approach them like that, men are just going to continue to do it.

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  2. When you don't have older men showing the younger men how to address and TREAT women respectfully...this is the outcome. Blame can be given to the media too, but at some point common sense comes into play. I don't assume every Black man from the hood is slanging, a misogynist or a dead-beat dad, even though those are images we're shown daily. Why? Because that's not everyone's reality. It's someone's reality, but it's not representative of a whole.

    I also find it an excuse to minimize accountability of one's personal behavior.

    I blame many of the women who show complacency with the behavior. I've seen far too many women smile and laugh at it, thereby making it "okay" in those guy's eyes. If you allow folks to disrespect you, well....what do you expect to happen?

    Unfortunately some men seemingly have the cognitive inability to discern whether something is right or wrong. Or rather, just choose to ignore the differences. :P

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  3. I agree with the other comments. In my opinion, a great deal of the blame lies on the women who have led men to believe that their behavior is acceptable. When I used to teach abstinence workshops, one thing we used to tell the girls in the group is that women possess more power than many of us realize...if we only learned how to use it correctly...

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  4. I agree with the other comments. Men will only do or say what they think women will allow and sadly, alot of women don't even get upset when a men gives them a sexual "compliment".

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  5. I agree with KP. There are too many black men out there who do not have a positive male figure in their life to serve as an example. Often times the "older" men they look up to are not far from them in age, and lack the same respect for women.

    A few days ago I was at Ihop with a friend after a night out and these two guys approached us. Of course they went into attack mode one attempted to sweet talk her and the other did the same to me. But there was NOTHING sweet about his talk. He asked me absurd sexual questions like could he BITE me etc. I was disgusted and told him I was gay just to see what he would do. Unfortunately, he didn't get the hint and proceeded to be utterly disrespectful.

    Moral of it all as women we need to have respect for ourselves and call these "men" out on their actions. If the older men are absent to teach them, then we need to take over.

    - @CHANELJay

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  6. it's a combo of most of these dudes not having daddies around (good job on mate selection moms, just any old body so that you won't be alone *side eye*) and then the media/music that is SO disrespectful of women. But why should they change? For every one of us who won't respond to that, there's some low self esteem having chick who'll be all flattered that someone finds her sexy enough to objectify. Then she'll pop out his baby that he'll abandon and the cycle starts again. LOVELY.

    Pretty much, date/mate right with people with like-minded goals and get away from dysfunctional/damaged mentally folks

    http://socialitedreams.wordpress.com/

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  7. I believe that it's a combination of a few things. At the top of the list:
    -both men and women not having strong positive male figures in their lives leads boys to look to other boys on how to be a man and girls to seek and accept attention in ANY form that it come. Blatant disrespect sounds like a complement when you don't have anything else to compare it to.
    - As women we need to have more respect for ourselves but we also need to teach our daughters/nieces/cousins by example and TALK to our young people.

    www.simpletruths.typepad.com

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