Tank Tops and Cat Calls.

When I was a teenager, my girlfriends and I used to make it a game to see if we could get guys to stare at us as we walked by. We mastered the art of catching a gaze and directing a lingering gaze well after we broke eye contact. It was great fun at the time. Probably because I felt like I controlled it. Somehow in those days, it seemed I had to fight for the same kind of attention that I no longer seek nor desire. In fact, that attention has readily found its way to me as a hawk seeks and descends upon its prey.

It was probably always there, but I didn't notice it. Not until I was an adult living in a large city. I heard it daily. Cars pulled over so that men could offer me a ride or ask me if I had a boyfriend. Strangers on the street asked me for my number, then acted offended when I wouldn't give it to them. Or they would beg. Both behaviors repulsed me and conversely caused a feeling of guilt to arise within me, almost as if I owed it to them. I knew I didn't, but that guilt was my immediate heart-response.

In its creepier and darker forms, I had strangers follow me for blocks, persisting in their pursuit for my - what? For my affection? For the trophy of myself? For affirmation? I don't know. But sometimes men followed me. Sometimes men made vulgar comments about things they wanted to do with my body.

It was utterly disheartening when one day my girl friend and I were walking with our close guy friends. As we entered the train station, a man made incredibly vulgar comments to me and my girl friend about our bodies. She and I slightly increased our pace and pretended not to be shaken. Our guy friends kept walking coolly on as though nothing happened. Because they didn't realize anything had. Because they didn't hear the comments. Because the man's eyes weren't on them. Because they would never imagine that anyone would be so vulgar. Because no one had ever done that to them. They didn't even hear it. It was so isolating to feel like the men who I perceived as my "protectors" at the time did not even perceive any danger, or worse, that they were incapable of doing so.

After a few years of constant (daily - no exaggeration) comments, cars stopping, cars honking, and me saying "No" more times than a ruthless 2 year-old, my wardrobe started to change. Old skirts that were "just too short" were pitched as were blouses that indicated I had a shapely torso (anything but T-shirts). Shorts were out altogether.

I didn't own a pair of shorts for about 4-5 years. I remember having a near panic attack one day when I was at my college campus. It was a rare beautifully warm day in the spring of Chicago. I wore a long skirt and a matching brown tank top.

In public. I wore a tank top in public. I was hyper-aware of the fact that my bra-straps kept slipping off my shoulders. Then I ran into my Bible professor. We made casual conversation about an assignment or something. I started panicking.

"He's seeing me in a tank top. Not now, bra-straps, not now! Can I pull them back up without drawing attention to them? Why did I wear a tank top?! He probably thinks I am a slut and that I'm obviously in the wrong major as a Bible student. Why is everyone looking at me?"

After our conversation ended and he innocently walked on, I continued beating myself up for what I was wearing. I almost vowed to throw out all my tank tops. Then realized I wasn't reacting to what happened in that moment. I was reacting to the accumulated, then-unnamed feelings of years before.

I realized that I felt like I was prey and predators were waiting to descend. I had to have my defenses up. I had to be proactive to reduce the likelihood of gaining that sort of attention. I changed my entire wardrobe as a result of it. I developed this weird fear of my body and a weird sense of guilt for the attention I felt like I brought upon myself simply by being a woman. I felt I had to do all in my power to reduce the attention.

My mini freakout made me feel like a stranger to myself. It was the start of a turning point for me.