Throughout my time abroad this semester, I have heard and witnessed some alarming and frankly disgusting situations regarding men and women.
A story told by my Prague tour guide about a holiday in the Czech Republic where men smack their partner’s bottoms to keep them from aging and losing their “youthful beauty” every year, an Easter holiday tradition.
A man passing me in the streets of Paris telling me I’d look so much prettier if I just smiled a little bit.
In Italy, we frequently encountered men catcalling or reaching out to touch our hair as my friends and I are simply trying to walk down the street to class or out to dinner.
Which, for one thing, is not just creepy, but incredibly random. I promise you this hair doesn’t always get washed every day. There’s no appeal in running your fingers through it, of this I am sure.
And then this weekend, when I asked my friends studying in Dublin if the men were as creepy and outspoken as they sometimes can be toward American women in Florence; I heard a story of an Irish boy walking right behind a girl and grabbing her chest.
Then again, when asked if she thought Irishmen or American men were worse, she said a lot of her friends had said Americans, hands down.
So essentially, all men are pigs.
Not so true. But while there is a stereotype of European men often targeting American women either traveling or studying abroad, we cannot advance that stereotype. The sad truth is, there is a lack of respect for women that is really only seen in these passing encounters.
The topic of what goals these men have when they set out to do this is constantly exhausted, and neither myself nor any of my friends come up with an answer that makes sense. There are theories, however.
You rarely see a man you know treat one of his female friends this way on a regular basis. There’s no safety in that.
There is the safety in these encounters where they can walk away and not have to deal with the stunned girl who doesn’t know what to do with the fact that she was just objectified by someone who probably thought they were giving her a compliment.
Often it’s to impress friends or make themselves feel like they have power. There must be a way to take this power back. And though you don’t hear about this as much, we can’t exclude women from this conversation too. But the majority of encounters we hear about are from women about men, not the other way around.
This is not to say all men are like this. These are the exceptions. But exceptions often can influence the majority because it can be too awkward or difficult to call someone out on bad behavior. Women typically stare straight ahead and ignore them, or shoot them a dirty look as they laugh it off and move on.
This passive reaction reinforces the mindset for a man to think this type of behavior is acceptable. There is another stereotype that American study abroad female students enjoy this type of assertive behavior, that they are used to this type of treatment from men in the United States and will respond to this.
It’s not flattering. It’s not what we want. Never in my life have I heard one of these stories end with, “And then I gave him my number, and we’re in love now.”
haask@umail.iu.edu
