That post you linked to was so great and thought-proving, esp all the comments and links from those, etc…I managed to spend a few hours looking through today. It is so sad that a small (but shockingly huge) number of bad apples have made it so miserable and scary for women, and then for the potentially nice guys out there. The other day a friend (driving) was honking to get my attention (I was walking), and he couldn’t understand why someone wouldn’t turn to look at a man honking at them!

I feel like I’ve always been a feminist. I learnt it in the playground, in which the girls and boys at my school interacted in a really gendered way. What sealed it for me, I think now, is being called a ‘whore’ when I was about seven, by a boy of the same age. I’d never heard that word before, I didn’t even know what it meant, I had to ask my friend. And it made me feel dirty. From then on my girl’s body, at that point not really that different from his boy’s body, became something that made me vulnerable.

You wrote a good entry about being a pedestrian some time ago and I read it wondering why I appear unable to assume similar control of the streets. I think it is partly my strange relationship with my body, partly my invisible and tiny disability, and partly the fact that I will be marked out as Other as soon as I open my mouth. In short, I let fear rule me. I admire loud and withering remarks – but I am the quiet sort and often cannot think of a suitable response (or even figure out why I’m offended) until hours later.

Clearly I have some way to go yet.