Yesterday a man walked into Hollister, where I work part-time, and asked me something that I quite couldn’t believe anyone would ever ask a woman – “I’m looking for a gift for a girl – you know, something that will get her in bed with me.”
Since the music is so loud in my store I wasn’t sure if I heard right, and it’s so dark in there I couldn’t read his lips. But he kept repeating the need for this gift to be something that would get some girl in bed.
Really? I didn’t know what to say, and so to keep myself from ranting my view on what he was doing, I suggested a sweater. I told him a nice cable-knitted sweater would probably be good. I couldn’t believe I said this. I really should have told him that maybe this girl might be offended, because I know I would have been.
He didn’t look convinced, so he said “thank you” and went on his way – hopefully to the jewelry store across the way, because I would think a woman is worth more than a $70 sweater.
I’ve been working on a story about rape for my university’s magazine, and so I’ve been even more sensitive to the way men treat women than I normally am. I felt like telling this man that he shouldn’t try to essentially bribe this woman into having sex with him. I mean, if this was something that woman had agreed to or even was the type of woman to demand gifts in exchange for sex, that’s cool, people can do that if they want.
This whole scene yesterday reminded me of last weekend when I went to an Artists Against Rape event.
I walked into the brick building and there was a table with a man and a woman sitting behind it to sell tickets. After standing at the entrance with my photographer for a couple of minutes, looking around, I noticed the man looking hungrily at a woman wearing a short dress.
I know, I know, he was expressing his sexuality. But it somehow just seemed really inappropriate to me, given that we were at an event where survivors of rape had come together to share their experiences.
