Gloria Steinem

The strangest thing happened yesterday. I was walking to my car after a shift at one of my part time gigs. I get in my car, turn the key, adjust the volume on Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill and look to my left to see a dude standing at my car. He taps on my window telling me “You hit my car.” and pointed to his side mirror. I thought of rolling down my window but decided to get out of my car – high off the power of Alanis I guess. I open my door and ask him what he said. “You hit my car! Look!”. So I look, and see a white mark on his side mirror – my car is dark blue – an important bit of info. if I do say so myself. I tell him “I don’t think so.”. He keeps pointing and repeating I hit his mirror. So I open my car door all the way, and there is a 1/2 inch space between my door and his mirror, no contact made. So I say “See, I couldn’t have hit your mirror.”, to which he tries to see if his mirror moved, which it had not. “Well, I felt something! I was sitting in my car and I felt something hit my car!” to which I said, with a shaking voice, “I don’t know what you felt, but it wasn’t me.” as I showed him, one more time, my door did not make contact with his mirror. I told him to have a good rest of the day, got in my car and drove off.

As I was driving home, something wasn’t sitting right. Not that I had done anything wrong, that once I had proved the fact I had not hit his mirror, that wasn’t good enough. I had physical and visual proof that I had not hit his mirror and that didn’t matter. He kept trying to get me to believe his false accusation. I realized my shaking voice wasn’t fear or anxiety, I was astonished that at 54 years old, with proof backing up my claim, a man younger than me still thought he was in the right and had the upper hand in some delusional way. It’s 2026 and we as women are still dealing with this shit. Before any of you tell me I’m making too much of this – if that’s what you believe, you are part of the problem. Think about it, if I was a dude, and the other driver even thought to confront the issue, and I proved my door did not make contact, there is a 95% chance the next words would have been, “My bad bro. Sorry about that.”. I call bullshit.

I got home and told my daughter about it, and one of the first things said was “so many women would have just gone along with it out of fear or anxiety of the situation.”. … and that pissed me off even more. Not pissed off at my daughter, pissed off at the world. Pissed off for all the women and girls in the world. This is not the world I thought they’d be living in. I realized while speaking with my daughter that I had made a conscious decision in the parking lot to keep my car door between me and the Master of the side mirror. When women leave the house or the work place, we have to be sure we have our keys, not only to not be locked out of our house or car, so we can put them between our fingers in case someone gets too close. We have to cross the street when a man walks too close, to see if he follows us, and have our phone ready to call someone if needed. We carry our phones and have fake conversations so others see we are not truly alone. All these influencers that say to get out in nature without your phone, like where? In our back yard? I could go on and on about what women have to do, and before you get all up in my business with “not all men!” , you are correct. It’s not all men. My husband, my father, my nephews, many of my friend’s husbands, my neighbours are wonderful men and people. That being said, here’s a thought. If it isn’t all men – why are women taught self defense, how to stay safe on the street, in the work place, in your home? Why is it that if you are being assaulted, we are told to yell “FIRE!” to be sure to get attention of passer’s by? Something to ponder.

I don’t know what made me stand my ground. I don’t know what made me get out of the car and prove my point. Maybe it was the spirit of dear Gloria Steinem or the spirit of all the strong women who came before me standing by me. Maybe it was my self defense teachings becoming a natural response, I don’t know, it just felt like the natural thing to do, and I’m proud that I did it.

One of the first things I was taught in self defense class was – if the person is a person of good intent, they’ll apologize for making you feel inferior, scared, etc. . If their intention is not good – don’t worry if you offended them for standing up for yourself. Plain and Simple.

To be clear, I am all for “girl power” and am a firm believer in equality. I am grateful to all the women who burned their bras and for their swollen feet and blisters for the marches they marched in so I can vote and have a library card without my daddy’s signature on it. (yes, up until the 1950’s in Canada a woman could not have a library card unless it had a man’s signature on it…my mother remembers my great grandmother taking her to the library the day women were allowed to have their own library card).This being said, as of late I am not seeing much equality out there. The lack of equality is not for the ladies…but for the gents. That’s right. I said it, for the gents.

Every time, I mean every time a gent comes in for product, the second he leaves some woman makes a snide remark, or pokes fun at him. “Isn’t that cute? He wants to do his hair.”. “Hmmppt…who is he trying to impress?”. “He must be gay.”. Yes, although it is 2012, people still have their head so far up their ass they cannot see daylight.

At least a couple of times a week gentlemen come into the shop for hair product. Sometimes they know exactly what they want…so many gents out there love KMS HairPlay Molding Paste and American Crew Fibre. Sometimes they come in looking for advice. Yes ladies, believe it or not, the gents like to look good too…and not just for us ladies…for themselves as well. Sometimes my male clients are feeling a little insecure because they are going through a divorce and haven’t changed their style in 10 years and just don’t know what to do. Some men come in because some jerk at the office made fun of their gray hair and now they think they have to dye it. On one occasion, a young man had just come out of closet and was celebrating his new cut and wanted the right product for his new style.

As women, we want equality. We want to be treated the same as men. So, if this is the case why is it that we as women can have anxiety but men cannot? Why is it that we as women can show fear but men cannot? Why is it as women we can take time and effort in our appearance for our own pleasure but when a man brushes his hair and teeth it is assumed he is “after something?”.

What astonishes me about this back woods mentality is this…if a man said a woman must be a slut if she does her hair and makeup…well, no one would stand for that. So why is it acceptable for a woman to call a man “vain and a womanizer” because he likes his hair to look good? Equality goes both ways ladies.

Want to be seen as an equal? Treat people as you want to be treated. You want respect? You gotta give it.