In the most recent issue of the paper, a bunch of Stranger ladies—including me—put together a piece about street harassment. (Go read it if you haven't!)

But given our limited room in the paper, and the way we chose to illustrate harassment instead of explain it, my personal reason for calling out street harassment—and why it plays such a role in the bullshit patriarchal structures that control women's lives—was left unsaid.

Because I think street harassment, at its root, is about enforcement.

When a woman is sexually harassed, it's just exactly that: a giant HELLO from the patriarchy, someone saying right out in the open that you're being treated this way because of your gender or sexuality. It puts you on the spot for being female, makes you feel sexualized against your will, and then often makes you feel embarrassed or guilty about that.

There you are, walking down the street being a human, and someone else—someone who benefits from the very system they're enforcing with their words or gestures—is yelling, "Oh, hi there—I see you thought you were a human being. No, actually, you're a woman, so I'd like to take this opportunity to give you my unasked-for evaluation of your sexual worth, and there's really very little you can do about it. It has never occurred to me, nor will it likely ever, that this is going to change the course of your day, and that the collective experience of hundreds of these moments will change the course of your life. I don't have to think about it. Now, I'll be off, I have to go make more money than you, be taken more seriously than you by the boss, and not have the government and health-care market control my reproductive system. Seeya!"

The last time a dude yelled at me from a car, I saw his face, and he wasn't laughing or smiling. He was in an SUV full of other twentysomething bros, and maybe he was just showing off, but he didn't seem to think it was a joke. It also wasn't a come-on—he just looked really, really angry. He had a creepy rage-squint, and he yelled at the top of his lungs. He was just yelling at a woman for the sake of yelling at a woman. It startled me way before it offended me. And I thought, what purpose could this dude's action possibly have, other than enforcement?

So while some people hear a story like that and argue, "Hey, he was just saying, 'I would like to mate with you, please,'" come on—you fucking know that's not true.

The whole "but it's a compliment!" whine completely (and conveniently) ignores the context of harassment: There's someone receiving your "compliment," and it makes them uncomfortable. Women aren't objects or passive receptacles, we're humans experiencing this thing you are doing, and when we tell you that your behavior is inappropriate, that should be the end of the discussion.

Street harassment exists in this actual world where we live (not the imaginary scenario in your brain), a world where some people have advantages that other people don't have.

So when you spray people with your privilege and then demand that they like it, or at the very least accept it wordlessly, don't be surprised by the anger, sadness, and exhaustion they actually respond with. It's not because no one likes compliments. It's because there's no compliment in "I have more power than you, and I want you to know it, and I want you to fucking accept it."