One of the things no one mentions when you have kids is how many times you’ll say the words “watch your head!” - or how one day when your child is about ten, you’ll want to beat the pants off have words with a kid named Emmett who doesn’t invite your child to a party - but hands out invitations right in front of him to make sure he knows he’s not invited.
Kudos on those instincts, I don’t know if I would have had the guts not to be polite. I’ve been lucky enough not to have experienced violence from random men on the street (men I knew and I invited into my home are another story, unfortunately), but a couple of weeks ago an old family friend pulled over for a chat while I was out for a walk, said he sees me out all the time, and asked “you’re not afraid of getting r**ed?” - and laughed. I’ve never been afraid of this man in my life - I’m still not afraid of him - but it was like the patriarchy saw me happy, independent, and single, and said “absolutely not”. They’re not satisfied until we’re terrified in our own bodies.
I walk even more now, because f-you, I won’t be controlled, or have my primary means of self-regulation taken away from me. But I am FURIOUS at the hypervigilance I feel every time I leave my house. The violence is the point.
Barely know how to say how furious this makes me. What a disgusting thing to say to you, and I’m sure if you called him on it he’d say he was joking. It’s not fucking funny. It’s not funny because sadly you DO have to be vigilant.
And I, like you, refuse to allow the things that happened as I was growing up and also, sadly, the things that happened later, from keeping me chained. Fuck that. When I go back to NYC to visit, which I do more and more these days because I have a family member who needs looking after, I walk everywhere, even at night. I’m careful, of course, but I love that city and I love walking and I won’t let these predatory assholes take that away from me.
I am getting pepper spray though, and maybe you want to think about it. I dunno. I worry about everyone, it’s my superpower. Do you know when I bought it for my daughter it was ILLEGAL for her to have it? You can’t carry it until you’re 16 in CA. I was like, well, you’re getting harassed, so you’re carrying it. If I get sued by some predatory guy for violating his rights by giving you pepper spray, that’s a battle I’m willing to fight.
I also enrolled her in self-defense camp. Then the coach said she’d get a lot out of private lessons so I did that. Now she assists him and is a counselor at that camp. That gives me some measure of comfort.
If that guy had tried anything the other night, he would have had an EPIC battle on his hands between the two of us. You just never know if someone is carrying a weapon, which is why my instinct was to get us inside.
Anyway. Thank you for being here, Carolyn. Enjoy your walks. Stay safe out there. Huge hugs, massive solidarity ❤️🩹
Thank you 🙏🏼 I’m also someone who has always walked wherever I please and never let fear stop me. It annoys me that this happened in my tiny rural neighbourhood, where I believed I was safe, when I walked through so many cities unscathed.
I haven’t looked into pepper spray but it’s a good idea, I checked out those pen tasers but they have to be above a certain length to be legal in Canada and to me it almost defeats the purpose if it’s not small enough to carry around without it being a hassle. I appreciate your compassion, stay safe out there ❤️
How wild is it that if I call the police they really won’t do anything, but here we are having to worry about legal ways we are allowed to protect ourselves from men who mean us harm. Are you fucking kidding me? Yes, let’s please be sure we don’t violate the rights of the men who want to rape us. Jesus. How about anything that fits in my purse is okay? As long as it’s sold over-the-counter, can’t go off accidentally and hurt someone unintentionally, etc. How about if I’m a mom and feel my 14-year-old needs to carry pepper spray because our society is not keeping her safe, then fucking trust me on that? Anyway, the better idea is to make the world safe. Until then though, we need to take care of ourselves and each other. Huge hugs.
This made me livid. What happened afterward? Are you still scared that he knows where you live? Did you call the police? I feel unsafe situationally, but not usually. This made me rethink that. My god, can we ever have a moment of actual peace? I'm so sorry this happened. And I'm enraged that it did.
There really wasn’t much to do. The police will not do anything in a situation like this except come over (maybe, if they aren’t dealing with real emergencies), take a description, and possibly circle the block. A person has to attack you before something can really be done. Ask me how I know. I despise the Nextdoor app and deleted it from my phone, but I do have an account there and think I might reactivate long enough to let people know so women in the area can exercise a little extra caution.
I haven’t been too concerned that he’ll come back or that he’s staking us out or anything. I imagine it was a case of very bad timing. But I am not sorry we now have a dog who may be a puppy, but is large and already “protecting his turf” - because if he does come back, I won’t stop Rufus from growling and barking his head off. He sounds like he means it. Obviously working with him on that so he isn’t going to be one of those dogs barking his head off at anyone who comes to the house, because no. But that guy? Yes.
"Ask me how I know." Jesus. I'm so sorry, Ally. I'm so glad you have Rufus. And your good instincts. But allowing predators to run rampant? It's all such bullshit.
This was a hard read, Ally. Triggering. The feeling of never being safe from predators and evil. The thought of being unable to protect our beautiful, deserving children from random violence. But your daughter is okay, because she grew up with a loving ally (Ally!) and because she's never felt as exposed and vulnerable as we were as the unprotected kids of alcoholics and narcissists. Predators stalk the vulnerable and unprotected. We have to arm ourselves with righteous rage. Right now, I'm mad enough to smash that blond man's face to a pulp, and I would gladly do it too, but I know you don't need my help. You've got this covered.
I do know she’s a whole different breed than I was. She’s self-assured and she’s been in self-defense classes for a year and she doesn’t take any shit from anyone. But she’s still human and in those moments you know how it is. I think both of our fight instincts would have kicked in if it had come to that. I have zero doubt if he’d even reached a finger in her direction I would have gone for the eyes, balls, stomach - I’d probably still be swinging. I just wish I’d screamed my head off, y’know? Yelled “Fire!” Or whatever the fuck it is we’re supposed to yell since people don’t come when a woman yells “help!”Whatever the first best thing is to do. Pepper spray for sure. I’m just so incredibly sick of it. Thank you for the kind words, Helia. I would never turn down back-up from you ❤️🩹 Hugs in this ridiculous world. I wish we could all feel safe. Seems such a simple thing to ask.
"My heart. I don’t know what to do with all the pain, which is maybe why I cannot understand people who want to cause pain."
I think one of the most adequate ways in many cases to think about it is that these people are deeply broken. The amount of pain you need to inflict on somebody in order to make them enjoy inflicting pain is not small. It is also a coping mechanism. When they see what they perceive as "weakness", they think it is their place to "whip things into shape". It infuriates them that not everyone became a monster. That some rather took another beating and stayed brave.
When these people see that others aren't as broken as they are, they feel emboldened. They wanna show that life's tough. That you have to be like them to persevere. That it is the right way. That it wins in the end. It is our task not to let them.
They mistake our kindness for softness until it's too late and then they are crying out loud. Just have a look at how sensitive they are. Little damn snowflakes. Consider how easy you could have provoked that predator. The earlier we can make it clear to them that they will be stopped, the softer it will be. They are willing to burn the planet down.
Not gonna happen. We're gonna watch our heads and your kids head's and they will watch ours, as I am sure they have the best upbringing kids can get.
I dig Hamilton Nolan, that was cathartic and I do agree - men like that go for the fight they know they can win. They go for the woman alone, or the woman with her teenage daughter WTF. They slip something in your drink (had that happen on a date when I was in my forties, single mom, two kids counting on me. What kind of weak-ass man does that? You have to drug me to try to get me into bed? Did not work by the way, I’m sensitive and knew something was wrong and ended the night abruptly). They go for the thirteen year old girl alone in a stairwell, or the 8-year-old girls sketching at the park, or the 12-year old girl on the elevator. Or the sixteen-year-old girl who thought she was safe and had too much to drink and turned out not to be safe at all because some guys will not take no for an answer even if you cry, even if you beg. Anyway. It’s weak. But it still fucks you up as a girl in this world, it teaches you strange things about your own power and your own place in the ecosystem, because it is normalized.
And it fucks you up as a grown woman, too (by *fucks you up* I mean enrages you) when men like this can hurt you and there isn’t a lot of legal recourse. It takes its toll. By the time it’s happening to your daughter, too, you want to line up all the predatory men and breathe fire on them until there’s nothing but ash.
They *are* the same guys wearing masks and pulling people off the streets. They do get off on hurting people and inflicting pain, and I think it’s true, you have to have been hurt a lot to get to that place where you enjoy making someone suffer. It takes much more strength to rise above that and be a good human being. And I think you’re right, we will win because we are stronger. We don’t have to cover our faces because we have nothing to be ashamed of. And we don’t have to dress up like idiots, we can just show up as ourselves. Anyway, thanks for being here, Ged. Another week in a world gone mad. But there are still so many good people, great books, good music and good, and sweet dogs.
Thank you for this one Ally. All good reminders on how to start connecting about this kind of thing with my 2 and 5 yr old daughters and controlling the pieces I can. I think I’ll keep her in that karate class as long as I can .
I learned how to control my face when they hit the teenage years, haha. Sometimes they’d share things, and inside I’d be like, hmmm I probably don’t need to know *that* 😳 But yeah, I just managed to talk to them all the way through and really can’t remember having to punish them which might sound weird. I just don’t think I did a lot of that. Never grounded either of them or took their phones or, I dunno, any of the classic things. I’d just talk to them really openly and I think that created an environment where they didn’t feel like that had to hide anything and if they screwed up I might be really disappointed, so there’d be those repercussions to deal with, but not the other stuff. Seemed to work pretty well around here.
That’s not what you were talking about though, but I guess it’s adjacent. Talking to her about things being slipped in your drink sucked. I didn’t want to share that with her but some things you have to talk about because better she knows from you. Anyhoo. Hi, so good to hear from you. Love to you and your family ❤️🩹
I felt every word of this. I'm still feeling second-hand anger as I finish my coffee. I think every woman would, except for the ones who have had to tamp everything down just to survive.
My daughter will turn 28 next week. I was more open with her than my mother was with me. She shared her negative experiences with the male world after I had many of those experiences myself. I tried to teach my daughter to be wary without terrifying her. I think I mostly succeeded, but it's pretty scary here for those that are paying attention.
My daughter listens to a lot of true crime podcasts. I used to worry about that - I thought it would make her a recluse; but now I can see that she's doing research. She's learning how to identify and avoid the kind of random stranger who threatened you and your daughter.
It’s such a difficult line to walk, because I also did not (and do not) want my daughter to be afraid or to not feel safe in the world, but the enraging reality is she is a lot less safe in the world day-to-day than my son. I don’t worry if he’s out with friends the same way I worry about her. Which doesn’t mean I don’t worry because I do lol. But not in the same way. I worry about everything, but I worry about this one thing a lot. Which sucks. I also didn’t and don’t want to teach her to be wary of men. She isn’t, but she’s smart. She pays attention.
I know a lot of women who love true crime. I wonder if there is some kind of character-study thing going on, so interesting. Lord, it’s not easy being a mom in this world. I feel like some things should be easier, like there are some things we should not have to worry about. If only. Hugs to you my friend, thanks for being here, as always ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
It is hard to find that balance, but she's had her own experiences to make her cautious. I did share with her that one of the reasons I married her father is because I've felt completely safe with him since our first meeting. (Plenty of not so safe encounters went into that judgement, of course).
My son's been living in Japan since 2019, and my biggest fear with him was that one of us would die from Covid while he was there. He said, "Well, if that happens, we've had a pretty good run."
We're all still here, we're all determined to keep fighting to reclaim our country. I'm looking forward to your next piece.🧡
Gosh your son is a philosopher. Good job on you. When I really start to despair about things I remind myself these kids are good, y’know? They’re good people. I want to be here as long as I can to have as many experiences with them as I can, and to be here for them and to just love my heart out - and I sure hope I get to do that with my grandkids, too, if that’s in the cards. But they are good human beings and there are a lot of good human beings. I still believe that’s why we’ll be okay 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
Kudos on those instincts, I don’t know if I would have had the guts not to be polite. I’ve been lucky enough not to have experienced violence from random men on the street (men I knew and I invited into my home are another story, unfortunately), but a couple of weeks ago an old family friend pulled over for a chat while I was out for a walk, said he sees me out all the time, and asked “you’re not afraid of getting r**ed?” - and laughed. I’ve never been afraid of this man in my life - I’m still not afraid of him - but it was like the patriarchy saw me happy, independent, and single, and said “absolutely not”. They’re not satisfied until we’re terrified in our own bodies.
I walk even more now, because f-you, I won’t be controlled, or have my primary means of self-regulation taken away from me. But I am FURIOUS at the hypervigilance I feel every time I leave my house. The violence is the point.
Thank you for another great article ❤️🌺
Barely know how to say how furious this makes me. What a disgusting thing to say to you, and I’m sure if you called him on it he’d say he was joking. It’s not fucking funny. It’s not funny because sadly you DO have to be vigilant.
And I, like you, refuse to allow the things that happened as I was growing up and also, sadly, the things that happened later, from keeping me chained. Fuck that. When I go back to NYC to visit, which I do more and more these days because I have a family member who needs looking after, I walk everywhere, even at night. I’m careful, of course, but I love that city and I love walking and I won’t let these predatory assholes take that away from me.
I am getting pepper spray though, and maybe you want to think about it. I dunno. I worry about everyone, it’s my superpower. Do you know when I bought it for my daughter it was ILLEGAL for her to have it? You can’t carry it until you’re 16 in CA. I was like, well, you’re getting harassed, so you’re carrying it. If I get sued by some predatory guy for violating his rights by giving you pepper spray, that’s a battle I’m willing to fight.
I also enrolled her in self-defense camp. Then the coach said she’d get a lot out of private lessons so I did that. Now she assists him and is a counselor at that camp. That gives me some measure of comfort.
If that guy had tried anything the other night, he would have had an EPIC battle on his hands between the two of us. You just never know if someone is carrying a weapon, which is why my instinct was to get us inside.
Anyway. Thank you for being here, Carolyn. Enjoy your walks. Stay safe out there. Huge hugs, massive solidarity ❤️🩹
Thank you 🙏🏼 I’m also someone who has always walked wherever I please and never let fear stop me. It annoys me that this happened in my tiny rural neighbourhood, where I believed I was safe, when I walked through so many cities unscathed.
I haven’t looked into pepper spray but it’s a good idea, I checked out those pen tasers but they have to be above a certain length to be legal in Canada and to me it almost defeats the purpose if it’s not small enough to carry around without it being a hassle. I appreciate your compassion, stay safe out there ❤️
How wild is it that if I call the police they really won’t do anything, but here we are having to worry about legal ways we are allowed to protect ourselves from men who mean us harm. Are you fucking kidding me? Yes, let’s please be sure we don’t violate the rights of the men who want to rape us. Jesus. How about anything that fits in my purse is okay? As long as it’s sold over-the-counter, can’t go off accidentally and hurt someone unintentionally, etc. How about if I’m a mom and feel my 14-year-old needs to carry pepper spray because our society is not keeping her safe, then fucking trust me on that? Anyway, the better idea is to make the world safe. Until then though, we need to take care of ourselves and each other. Huge hugs.
This made me livid. What happened afterward? Are you still scared that he knows where you live? Did you call the police? I feel unsafe situationally, but not usually. This made me rethink that. My god, can we ever have a moment of actual peace? I'm so sorry this happened. And I'm enraged that it did.
There really wasn’t much to do. The police will not do anything in a situation like this except come over (maybe, if they aren’t dealing with real emergencies), take a description, and possibly circle the block. A person has to attack you before something can really be done. Ask me how I know. I despise the Nextdoor app and deleted it from my phone, but I do have an account there and think I might reactivate long enough to let people know so women in the area can exercise a little extra caution.
I haven’t been too concerned that he’ll come back or that he’s staking us out or anything. I imagine it was a case of very bad timing. But I am not sorry we now have a dog who may be a puppy, but is large and already “protecting his turf” - because if he does come back, I won’t stop Rufus from growling and barking his head off. He sounds like he means it. Obviously working with him on that so he isn’t going to be one of those dogs barking his head off at anyone who comes to the house, because no. But that guy? Yes.
"Ask me how I know." Jesus. I'm so sorry, Ally. I'm so glad you have Rufus. And your good instincts. But allowing predators to run rampant? It's all such bullshit.
It really is.
This was a hard read, Ally. Triggering. The feeling of never being safe from predators and evil. The thought of being unable to protect our beautiful, deserving children from random violence. But your daughter is okay, because she grew up with a loving ally (Ally!) and because she's never felt as exposed and vulnerable as we were as the unprotected kids of alcoholics and narcissists. Predators stalk the vulnerable and unprotected. We have to arm ourselves with righteous rage. Right now, I'm mad enough to smash that blond man's face to a pulp, and I would gladly do it too, but I know you don't need my help. You've got this covered.
I do know she’s a whole different breed than I was. She’s self-assured and she’s been in self-defense classes for a year and she doesn’t take any shit from anyone. But she’s still human and in those moments you know how it is. I think both of our fight instincts would have kicked in if it had come to that. I have zero doubt if he’d even reached a finger in her direction I would have gone for the eyes, balls, stomach - I’d probably still be swinging. I just wish I’d screamed my head off, y’know? Yelled “Fire!” Or whatever the fuck it is we’re supposed to yell since people don’t come when a woman yells “help!”Whatever the first best thing is to do. Pepper spray for sure. I’m just so incredibly sick of it. Thank you for the kind words, Helia. I would never turn down back-up from you ❤️🩹 Hugs in this ridiculous world. I wish we could all feel safe. Seems such a simple thing to ask.
"My heart. I don’t know what to do with all the pain, which is maybe why I cannot understand people who want to cause pain."
I think one of the most adequate ways in many cases to think about it is that these people are deeply broken. The amount of pain you need to inflict on somebody in order to make them enjoy inflicting pain is not small. It is also a coping mechanism. When they see what they perceive as "weakness", they think it is their place to "whip things into shape". It infuriates them that not everyone became a monster. That some rather took another beating and stayed brave.
A piece I love linking in similar contexts is Hamilton Nolan's "You're a bunch of Cowards". https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/youre-a-bunch-of-cowards .
I find it to be a cathartic read in these times.
When these people see that others aren't as broken as they are, they feel emboldened. They wanna show that life's tough. That you have to be like them to persevere. That it is the right way. That it wins in the end. It is our task not to let them.
They mistake our kindness for softness until it's too late and then they are crying out loud. Just have a look at how sensitive they are. Little damn snowflakes. Consider how easy you could have provoked that predator. The earlier we can make it clear to them that they will be stopped, the softer it will be. They are willing to burn the planet down.
Not gonna happen. We're gonna watch our heads and your kids head's and they will watch ours, as I am sure they have the best upbringing kids can get.
We will win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acT_PSAZ7BQ
I dig Hamilton Nolan, that was cathartic and I do agree - men like that go for the fight they know they can win. They go for the woman alone, or the woman with her teenage daughter WTF. They slip something in your drink (had that happen on a date when I was in my forties, single mom, two kids counting on me. What kind of weak-ass man does that? You have to drug me to try to get me into bed? Did not work by the way, I’m sensitive and knew something was wrong and ended the night abruptly). They go for the thirteen year old girl alone in a stairwell, or the 8-year-old girls sketching at the park, or the 12-year old girl on the elevator. Or the sixteen-year-old girl who thought she was safe and had too much to drink and turned out not to be safe at all because some guys will not take no for an answer even if you cry, even if you beg. Anyway. It’s weak. But it still fucks you up as a girl in this world, it teaches you strange things about your own power and your own place in the ecosystem, because it is normalized.
And it fucks you up as a grown woman, too (by *fucks you up* I mean enrages you) when men like this can hurt you and there isn’t a lot of legal recourse. It takes its toll. By the time it’s happening to your daughter, too, you want to line up all the predatory men and breathe fire on them until there’s nothing but ash.
They *are* the same guys wearing masks and pulling people off the streets. They do get off on hurting people and inflicting pain, and I think it’s true, you have to have been hurt a lot to get to that place where you enjoy making someone suffer. It takes much more strength to rise above that and be a good human being. And I think you’re right, we will win because we are stronger. We don’t have to cover our faces because we have nothing to be ashamed of. And we don’t have to dress up like idiots, we can just show up as ourselves. Anyway, thanks for being here, Ged. Another week in a world gone mad. But there are still so many good people, great books, good music and good, and sweet dogs.
Thank you for this one Ally. All good reminders on how to start connecting about this kind of thing with my 2 and 5 yr old daughters and controlling the pieces I can. I think I’ll keep her in that karate class as long as I can .
I learned how to control my face when they hit the teenage years, haha. Sometimes they’d share things, and inside I’d be like, hmmm I probably don’t need to know *that* 😳 But yeah, I just managed to talk to them all the way through and really can’t remember having to punish them which might sound weird. I just don’t think I did a lot of that. Never grounded either of them or took their phones or, I dunno, any of the classic things. I’d just talk to them really openly and I think that created an environment where they didn’t feel like that had to hide anything and if they screwed up I might be really disappointed, so there’d be those repercussions to deal with, but not the other stuff. Seemed to work pretty well around here.
That’s not what you were talking about though, but I guess it’s adjacent. Talking to her about things being slipped in your drink sucked. I didn’t want to share that with her but some things you have to talk about because better she knows from you. Anyhoo. Hi, so good to hear from you. Love to you and your family ❤️🩹
I felt every word of this. I'm still feeling second-hand anger as I finish my coffee. I think every woman would, except for the ones who have had to tamp everything down just to survive.
My daughter will turn 28 next week. I was more open with her than my mother was with me. She shared her negative experiences with the male world after I had many of those experiences myself. I tried to teach my daughter to be wary without terrifying her. I think I mostly succeeded, but it's pretty scary here for those that are paying attention.
My daughter listens to a lot of true crime podcasts. I used to worry about that - I thought it would make her a recluse; but now I can see that she's doing research. She's learning how to identify and avoid the kind of random stranger who threatened you and your daughter.
I'm glad you're all healthy and safe. Take care🧡
It’s such a difficult line to walk, because I also did not (and do not) want my daughter to be afraid or to not feel safe in the world, but the enraging reality is she is a lot less safe in the world day-to-day than my son. I don’t worry if he’s out with friends the same way I worry about her. Which doesn’t mean I don’t worry because I do lol. But not in the same way. I worry about everything, but I worry about this one thing a lot. Which sucks. I also didn’t and don’t want to teach her to be wary of men. She isn’t, but she’s smart. She pays attention.
I know a lot of women who love true crime. I wonder if there is some kind of character-study thing going on, so interesting. Lord, it’s not easy being a mom in this world. I feel like some things should be easier, like there are some things we should not have to worry about. If only. Hugs to you my friend, thanks for being here, as always ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
It is hard to find that balance, but she's had her own experiences to make her cautious. I did share with her that one of the reasons I married her father is because I've felt completely safe with him since our first meeting. (Plenty of not so safe encounters went into that judgement, of course).
My son's been living in Japan since 2019, and my biggest fear with him was that one of us would die from Covid while he was there. He said, "Well, if that happens, we've had a pretty good run."
We're all still here, we're all determined to keep fighting to reclaim our country. I'm looking forward to your next piece.🧡
Gosh your son is a philosopher. Good job on you. When I really start to despair about things I remind myself these kids are good, y’know? They’re good people. I want to be here as long as I can to have as many experiences with them as I can, and to be here for them and to just love my heart out - and I sure hope I get to do that with my grandkids, too, if that’s in the cards. But they are good human beings and there are a lot of good human beings. I still believe that’s why we’ll be okay 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼