How I think things should be is for women to be able to do as I do back home, similar kinds of things to Gypsy. I mean she's talking back home, but I've also had experience of relative freedom in other countries, for example, working for organisations where friends/colleagues have changing shift patterns.
E.g. Your day off is when your best friend is working, so you can't go shopping together. You need to buy an outfit for an event, so you head to the stores by yourself, have a look around, make some purchases, and by now you're hungry and it's lunchtime and you want a sandwich and a coffee, or maybe you've been shopping all afternoon and it's now early evening, and you want to sit down, because your feet are aching, and get a glass of wine and a bite to eat. You're by yourself, you maybe feel a little awkward to be in the cafe bar sitting at a table by yourself, but you have a magazine or newspaper to read while you relax and recuperate.
I appreciate that's not necessarily going to be possible.
But I would have thought that maybe it would be possible to go out by myself and wait by myself to meet a friend or a group of friends at whatever venue we decided, whether it's a bar or restaurant.
Maybe I am too independent, maybe I am just too used to doing what I want and when I want?
I'm really starting to struggle with this.
Because I could understand if maybe a woman dressed in a very short skirt, with a very low cut top and dolled up to the nines and sitting in a bar by herself might be considered provocative (although I would never say that meant was asking for it).
But I'm finding it a struggle to get my head round the idea that a woman who is relatively conservatively dressed, who perhaps arrives alone at a bar or restaurant ahead of the rest of her friends is fair game to be subjected to a load of harassment.
To me, that's what I'm wanting, that's kind of my compromise standard as to how I think things should be for women.
Although it seems I'm going to have a very rude awakening.
And now I'll reply in the same vein as Gypsy.
How I think things should be is for women to be able to do as I do back home, similar kinds of things to Gypsy. I mean she's talking back home, but I've also had experience of relative freedom in other countries, for example, working for organisations where friends/colleagues have changing shift patterns.
E.g. Your day off is when your best friend is working, so you can't go shopping together. You need to buy an outfit for an event, so you head to the stores by yourself, have a look around, make some purchases, and by now you're hungry and it's lunchtime and you want a sandwich and a coffee, or maybe you've been shopping all afternoon and it's now early evening, and you want to sit down, because your feet are aching, and get a glass of wine and a bite to eat. You're by yourself, you maybe feel a little awkward to be in the cafe bar sitting at a table by yourself, but you have a magazine or newspaper to read while you relax and recuperate.
I appreciate that's not necessarily going to be possible.
But I would have thought that maybe it would be possible to go out by myself and wait by myself to meet a friend or a group of friends at whatever venue we decided, whether it's a bar or restaurant.
Maybe I am too independent, maybe I am just too used to doing what I want and when I want?
I'm really starting to struggle with this.
Because I could understand if maybe a woman dressed in a very short skirt, with a very low cut top and dolled up to the nines and sitting in a bar by herself might be considered provocative (although I would never say that meant was asking for it).
But I'm finding it a struggle to get my head round the idea that a woman who is relatively conservatively dressed, who perhaps arrives alone at a bar or restaurant ahead of the rest of her friends is fair game to be subjected to a load of harassment.
To me, that's what I'm wanting, that's kind of my compromise standard as to how I think things should be for women.
Although it seems I'm going to have a very rude awakening.