More tales of bad behaviour…

A bit of a belated hollaback, this one, but I’ve been off doing other things lately and haven’t had the chance to sit down and write properly for a week or two. The next bit will partly explain why.

I’ve been injured for the last three weeks. For the last two of those, I have been stupefied on painkillers and had the attention span of a gnat. Thankfully, I’m on the mend now. (It was a sprained foot).

Now you’d think that a hospital waiting room would be a fairly safe place, during the day at least. All those signs up saying that attacks on staff will not be tolerated, people passing in and out all the time, everyone being too caught up in their own personal problems to bother with bothering their fellow patients.

Step forward Twat MkIII. Yes, it is you I’m talking about, you were in the waiting room of the Royal Liverpool Hospital some time after 11 am on the 27th of May. Youngish guy, wearing a cap, you had an ominous Christian book open on your lap. (I was a poet and I didn’t know it!)

Now, when a woman is sitting in a hospital waiting room, waiting for the nurse to call her name, so she can hop into the consulting room and have someone reassess her dodgy foot, she doesn’t want to get to know people like you. Especially when she has shown this by hiding behind her own book. When she ignores you and feigns massive interest in the “Look After Your Heart” wall display to the side, don’t embarrass and annoy her by continuing to try and get her attention, in the way you would a small dog. Don’t you know how rude that is? Do you not realise that people do not go to the hospital to be chatted up?

Honestly, some people.

The next bit of street warrior-ness happened earlier today. I don’t think it has anything to do with feminism or that it really counts as street harrassment, but it’s bad behaviour nonetheless.

Right, you, you in the silver Vauxhall (I think, I didn’t stick around to take notes). The arsey-looking bald-headed guy with the tenuous knowledge of the Highway Code. Passing by Abercromby Square sometime shortly after 1pm. Yes, you.

When a traffic light is on red, you stop. When the little green man is flashing on a pedestrian crossing, people are going to walk across. It is not optional for you to stop, you self-important prick. When you do feel the need to ignore the basic rules of the road, DO NOT give the innocent road-crosser you just nearly hit evil looks, as if it’s her fault! I make no apology for shouting or using foul language towards you, as you bloody well deserved it.

I admit this probably had nothing to do with my gender, but it does illustrate the kind of self-important, entitled mindset that feminists often find themselves up against. We are constantly told how we should feel aabout things like street harrassment and expected to second-guess other people’s unpleasant behaviour – of course it was only a joke! Likewise, when out and about of an evening, we are supposed to second guess what any given passer-by might do and make sure we act accordingly – mustn’t drink, mustn’t use certain streets, mustn’t wear revealing clothes, unless a random pervert happens to be passing by. As if we can. As if we can work out in advance anything that a lurking misogynist might do, any more than we can anticipate what traffic signals a substandard driver will or won’t obey.

Okay, some time this week, I’m going to put another more positive post up. I’ve been to see Gunther von Hagens’ Bodyworlds and have plenty to say…

Oh dear, not more bad behaviour in the street…

Following on from last week’s post about the hideous scene I was forced to witness in Lewis’s last week, I’ve decided to call out another weirdo and his nasty public behaviour. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t go round looking for this stuff – the fact that I’ve witnessed it twice in two weeks has just made it stick in my mind and get on my nerves that bit more. Both times, I’ve been doing stuff that I do every day or at least every week, without a problem. It just proves that women going about their everyday lives can come up against hatred, or in this case, just general creepy strangeness, in any situation.

 

Okay. Now for this week’s total twat. Yes, I’m talking about you, the one with the short, dark brown dreadlocks and the ring in the left eyebrow who was wandering round Abercromby Square in Liverpool, today, the 26th of April, at around 12:50, close to the Sydney Jones Library. Wearing black clothes, with a hoodie or cardigan sort of hanging off your left shoulder. You kind of looked as if you were on drugs – am I correct?

I was walking along the pavement towards the Sydney Jones, so that I could take some books back and meet a friend. Mr Twatoid materialised through the gate from the Abercromby Square quad and walked towards me, seemingly normally. He started looking at me quite intensely, but i just assumed that he thought he recognised me from somewhere. I did a quick mental check to see of I remembered HIM and was perhaps being ignorant, but drew a blank. I had never seen him before.

As he got closer, the staring intensified and he mouthed something at me. I have an idea what it was and it looked like “I hate you”, but I can’t be 100% sure of that. It could have been some other incoherent twat-talk like “High hay hooooo” or “Highgate loo”. I was mildly perturbed, but kept on walking. The staring continued and Mr Twat moved directly into my path, almost deliberately walking into me. As he passed, he said something I didn’t catch in a weird high-pitched voice. I was slightly more perturbed, but kept on anyway, making sure he wasn’t following me.

This incident pales into insignificance compared to last week, but I felt like recording it as another example of a male using intimidating behaviour for NO reason. It was more irritating than frightening.

I did not speak at all during the whole exchange. What on Earth had I done to have someone mouth weirdness at me and try to barge me off the pavement? I walk to the Sydney Jones carrying books several times a week and this doesn’t happen. It’s not normal and it sucks!

I’ve decided that I’m going to record all of these incidents in my blog in the future, but I hope there’s not too many, because there’s loads more stuff I want to write about…

I’m back and I’m angry.

When I started this blog, I had all sorts of good intentions and tons of ideas for articles I would write. Sadly, I’ve been too busy burrowing here and there and working at becoming an archaeologist to actually do any of them.

What is even sadder is that what has pushed me to write again is not an inspiration or a great idea. It’s something awful that happened earlier today.

Today, at about lunchtime, I was taking my usual shortcut through Lewis’s department store in Liverpool, on my way to my normal Saturday lunch and window-shopping session in the city centre. I was passing by where they display the china when I became aware of a disturbance behind me. I kept walking, not really wanting to see. The disturbance followed. A man was shouting really loudly at someone, probably several people. I think there was a raised female voice as well, but I’m not sure. It was when I caught “It’s none of your fucking business” and “I was having a conversation with my WIFE” among the torrent of “fuck off” that I got a clue what was going on. My heart sank. I detest violence and disorder in public towards anybody, woman, man or child, but public displays of domestic violence sicken me in a particularly personal way.

I tried to keep walking. The man pushed past some people and was now level with me. He was now verbally abusing another woman who had obviously pulled him up on his shitty behaviour. I do not know who she was. He called her, among other things, a “soft cow” and repeatedly told her to fuck off.  Other insults were used, but I don’t remember them. At this point, a tall blonde woman in a checked jacket caught my eye. The look she gave me was not one of fear exactly, more the kind of look you do give a fellow person in this kind of situation, when you don’t know how to act and are looking around for support. I did not know who this woman was or what her part in the debacle was. I thought she may have been the bystander who had been the object of the last outburst.

I mouthed to her something about getting one of the assistants, not wanting to draw fire myself. Too late. As I was approaching the hosiery section, the man started shouting at me to fuck off, claiming it was nothing to FUCKING do with me and calling me a “soft cow” and other insults I cannot remember precisely enough to want to recount them. I am ashamed to say that I turned round and pretended I hadn’t noticed what was going on. By this time, a security guard had appeared. The man walked away, shoving a mobile phone into the hand of the blonde woman. It was only then that I noticed that they had a small child with them.

I was rather shaken. I am not used to this sort of thing happening. I went over to two of the female shop staff, who had seen what had happened. They said that shop security were now following the man. They were very kind and listened to my outraged and saddened waffling for a bit, both agreeing that the man’s behaviour was totally unacceptable. “Some people are just horrible”, is what one of them said to me.

All I did was show some concern and rudimentary solidarity with a fellow woman, heck, a fellow human being. If you are reading this, Mr Fuck-ugly overtanned psycho-aggressive control-freak misogynist who was passing through Lewis’s at about 1:10 pm on Saturday, 19th April, I have one thing to say to you. Take a leaf out of your own book. My concern for a fellow woman and disconcertion at your vile public behaviour is none of your fucking business. You act like a misogynist jerkoff in public, the few decent and brave people around will intervene and WILL pull you up on your unaceptable levels of aggression and rudeness. Just because a woman happens to be married to you, does not give you the right to insult, denigrate, threaten or humiliate her in public – whatever it was you did when you were thankfully out of my sight and direct earshot.

The person who intervened first, and I, were totally within our rights to expect you not to act like that in public or elsewhere. We were not in the wrong and you had NO fucking justification to insult and intimidate us and any other decent right-minded shop assistant or passer-by who was subjected to your violent outburst.

I will not mind my own business. For too long, this awful stupid feeling that we shouldn’t interfere has indirectly caused many serious crimes – I’m thinking most DV-related murders, most child abuse-related killings, a good number of horrific crimes against vulnerable adults, Dog knows how many other offences – or at least allowed them to go on undetected.

It’s time to get angry again. All that is needed for evil to triumph is for the good to do nothing. Or mind their own bloody business.