Losing track of men and miles. 12/01/21

 Let me set the scene: my heart is racing, my breath is catching in my throat and I’m panting vigorously. My fists are clenched, my body is hot and sweaty and I’ve found a steady rhythm. Just as I’m about to finish…. a man decides to verbally sexualise me and I’m forced to continue my run in order to further the distance between myself and him. This is an alternative to halting at a lamppost to catch my breath. 

Honestly, owing to the amount of cat-calls I receive on a regular basis when I’m out on a run, in broad daylight, in leggings and a fleece (it is January and I do live in the North-East of England), I can only propound that which I have just alluded to, must be a similarly intimate scene in the heads of the random men who “flatter” me with their objectifying remarks and comments on my body. The comments shouted at me as I run past them, away from them, anywhere but in the same vicinity as them. 

Even red in the face, out of breath, and with the fringe of my recently cut mullet pasted to my forehead in sweat, let me tell you, never have I felt sexier than I do at 4pm on a Thursday; apparently young women who look approximately 2 minutes away from what feels like a cardiac arrest is just what does it for some people. At least that’s what I presume from the particular crowd of men heckling me along Newcastle’s West Road. 

Either that or they were just really big fans of Olivia Newton John’s ‘Physical’. In fact maybe I’ve been getting this all wrong throughout my adolescence and what I’ve actually been experiencing is just a spot of harmless outdoor karaoke. What I’ve been foolishly perceiving as cat calling all this time has actually been a serenade, of songs like Snoop Dog’s ‘Hey Sexy Lady’, Mark Rebillet’s ‘Look at that ass’, and J.Holiday’s ‘Run into my arms’. Sung of course by men of various ages, ethnicities and backgrounds because misogyny doesn’t discrimin…wait. 

I’ve been running since I was about 16, and over the years as I’ve tracked my pace and clocked up my miles, I’ve lost track of the amount of creepy smiles and unwanted comments about my body as they’ve accumulated. I’ve heard dirtier talk shouted after me on the street than in any nightclub, and with the amount of groping that goes on on Newcastle's 'Diamond Strip', that’s saying something. You know what they say ladies, nothing turns us on like some non-consensual grabbing and/or heckling - both if we’re feeling particularly ravishing that evening. 

I suppose there is no irony to be lost in the fact that usually when I run I listen to music or a podcast, so almost regrettably I cannot always recall the exact wording of the derogatory statements directed towards me, drowned out by the ‘Guilty Feminist’ podcast, or more likely some misogynist reggaeton. I’m a feminist but…I run to songs with lyrics like ‘me trae loco su figura’ (your figure drives me crazy), or ‘Tú sabes que eres mía’  (you know that you are mine) because somehow being able to play and pause the song gives me a sense of reclaiming phallocentric terminology, rather than reinforcing my own oppression. Or something like that. 

Having had conversations with male and female and non-binary friends about this, who have suggested that perhaps not all cat-calling is offensive, it seems important then to make the distinction between what I consider and appreciate a compliment, and what is just unnecessary and quite frankly unwanted attention. For example, a few weeks ago, a boy walking past me on my way to the supermarket stopped me to politely tell me he thought I was pretty, before simply walking off. Made my day, bless him. 

Whereas the men who stand, usually in groups because they clearly need some sort of peer support, and shout things like ‘come to me pretty woman’ or ‘hey physical lady’ don’t really tend to give off the same sort of courtesy. I think as a general rule, if you need your mates to cajole you into shouting something at a woman, and they all cheer as she ignores you, probably just don’t bother. Worse still, if the presence of a man next to her makes you reconsider whatever one-liner you were about to launch in her direction, definitely abort mission. 

Then of course there are the men who think they’re the shit literally because they happen to be in a car. Who drive up to us, roll the window down just to whistle or beep their horn from a closer proximity, and then drive away with a smug smirk on their face, clearly amused by a woman’s discomfort at their leering. Acting as if they’ve completed some great accomplishment. Well, maybe they have. Mirror-signal-manouver and a sexist comment as the pièce de résistance? And they say men can’t multitask. 

Of course, I do intend all of this somewhat satirically. I understand that often it can be difficult for guys, especially within modern hook-up culture, when there’s so much pressure in society for men to make the ‘first move’, due to entrenched ideas of patriarchy and male chauvinism. I think everyone, men, women, those who do not conform to either of these binaries, and so on, would benefit from removing this idea that the man should be the one to hold the door, buy the drink, pay for the meal etc. In an era that has seen the most progress in terms of gender equality, of course I encourage the active subversion of gender stereotypes. I just don’t quite see where cat-calling fits into this, as whilst I don’t appreciate being heckled by random men on the street, nor do I suppose a man in my position wound find flattering a description of his shapely buttocks shouted at him by a group of sniggering women. 

 A women approaching a man they find attractive and asking for their number though? That I fully support. Truth be told, curb-side cat-calling aside, certainly in a heterosexual setting, I have noticed that the woman does tend to receive more compliments than the man. Certainly on social media apps like Instagram, it seems almost customary for men to comment at least a heart eye emoji on their girlfriend's posts. Whereas women tend to reserve comments such as 'OMG YOU"RE GORGEOUS' and 'YOU'RE SO BEAUTIFUL I COULD DIE' for their female friends' selfies. 

I hope a man would find it flattering at least, to be told harmlessly by a stranger that they find them attractive. Let’s face it, the worst thing they can do theoretically is say no, and honestly I think rejection is healthy. Keeps a woman grounded from all the attention she’s receiving on the street. 

This is not to say that women are some archetypal feminist ideal just because they're women. I hold my hands up and admit that, along with a fair share of my friends, we’ve all discussed in graphic detail attractive people we’ve glimpsed at a bar, and hypothesised what we’d get up to in the bedroom over a few glasses of wine, etc etc. Look, people are people and I’m not condemning conversation about people we may be attracted to. Crucially though, at least when my friends and I do engage with this sort of discourse, we do it amongst ourselves. Out of the earshot of whoever we’ve discussing, in such a way that they won’t feel uncomfortable walking home alone at night (or midday), or reconsidering that the leggings they were wearing (for exercise), maybe were too tight after all. 

This, what seems to be then to be a majorly female-experience problem, became perhaps most apparent to me recently when, in a conversation with a male friend, he suggested that the worst thing about running was that ‘you just feel like a tit when people look at you’. To which I jokingly replied that the worst thing for me (especially in cities like Manchester or Newcastle) was ‘the attention drawn to my tits’ by almost expected cat-calling. The likes of which I experienced every time I exercised outside (my current record is 7 separate incidents on one run, although to be fair that was with a friend, so maybe 3.5 if we divide them up between us?). It was my male friend’s unintentionally ignorant reply ‘Oh I never thought of that,’ that it dawned on me that, intended in the least patronising way possible, of course he hadn’t. Because he didn’t need to. And that’s the difference. 

Controversial I know, but take it as you will. 

All that being said, maybe women like myself are just being ungrateful. I suppose really, we should actually thank the men who take the time to shout misogynistic remarks at us. Perhaps we ought to view them not as sexist perpetrators, but as personal trainers, who helpfully ensure that not under any circumstances will we stop running. Even though the stitch in our side may be crippling and our hamstrings seizing up, because heaven forfend will we expose ourselves (metaphorically of course) to any more than the bare minimum of verbal womanising, for any longer than is absolutely necessary. Even if those brief moments of rest are just to catch our breath so we don’t pass out. 

Honestly sometimes even fainting from lack of oxygen seems favourable to hearing yet another comment about the shape of my arse.