an open letter to the man who drove back around the block to tell me my dress was tucked into my underwear:
an open letter to the man who drove back around the block to tell me my dress was tucked into my underwear:
??First, thank you. I am saying thank you now, because when I said it as you drove off I spoke in a mumbling, self conscious tone, still trying to figure out what our interaction meant, and how badly my dress was stuck in my underwear, and whether it was just a little but mussed or if I actually showed off my light blue, lacy, La Perla sample sale undies to all of Carolina Ave, including a whole playground and ball field full of elementary school students.
I said thank you because, as strange as that interaction was, as much as I wish you had kept driving and let some fellow subway rider tell me about my dress, thus sparing me the fear that I feel whenever a car pulls over to the side of the road towards me, as much as I would have preferred to get all the way to Downtown Crossing and have Mr. GF tell me, if that was the only other option, I believe that you drove back around the block and pulled over to alert me to my wardrobe malfunction with only the kindest of intentions.
I have to believe this because I want to live in a world where that is true, where the power and privilege you posses as a man in this world do not prevent you from doing an act of kindness without the specter of men’s every day violence towards women coming between us. I wish you could see the world and that interaction through a woman’s eyes. But thank you, I think.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I feel like I’ve spent my whole life being told by strange men who want to “help” that they know something I don’t –about my clothing, my bag, my bike or the world. Except I often do know it, often with a deeper, more nuanced understanding than they have. But they wouldn’t listen if I told them that, so I just say, “Mmmhmm.”