Here’s to an issue that has no geographical boundaries or racial preferences –
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My legs will stretch out from underneath my dress with no apology.

My hips will curve out like a neat bottle of cola and exist with no apology.

Mascara may sometimes decorate my lashes and my eyes will occasionally dress up. But they will appear with no apology.

My hair will carelessly fall over my shoulders, be whipped back into a bun, be twirled into a twist at the nape of my neck. My hair will be what it wants to be without any apology.

When I stepped into your office, I was welcomed by the usual cheer of both you and your colleagues. But something quickly changed. You, and him, and him, were examining me with a string of thoughts; a brief wondering about the ways, tastes, and textures of foreign flesh. I could read it in your eyes and the way your lips turned upward in that halfway smile. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. I have an intuition; a sense you will never know about. And I have met many like you before.

You offered up the usual harmless banter about the need for me to get a husband and then shifted to a slightly less appreciated conversation around my refusal to sleep with you – a conversation laced with an air of humour and gentle teasing and muddled with clear signs of your serious questioning.

But when you told me I should “penetrate a man”, you crossed that fine line.

And you crossed it again, and again, and again.

You crossed it when you held my arm too tightly, despite feeling me writhing beneath your firm grip.

You crossed it when you told me that I’ve gained weight and that my bigger breasts are the sign of it. You crossed it when you crudely suggested they are being hugged together in a way…

And I walked out.

I laugh, dismiss, shake my head, and continue with the carefree ease that has come to be my signature at the office.

You are able to say what you want to say because I have allowed you to. I did not care enough about you to waste my energy on you. I found it less stressful and less emotionally exhaustive to ignore you than to engage with you about that place – the insecure, low, and objectifying place – from which those comments emanate. You’re not a bad person, really. But somehow, you’ve not lived in the true strength of manhood. You have existed in its shadows, in its false pretenses, and in its vain attempts. And since you have bound your sense of self so intimately with me – your manhood with women – I beg to say that you have not been privileged to experience a woman for what she truly is.

For you look at your women but you do not see them. You listen to your women but you do not hear them. You touch your women but you often do not feel them.

So from now on, I will call it for what it is. Because otherwise, you will continue with your ways – from me to her. And suppose she spoke out to you? You would attribute it to a difference in personality. You would suggest that I am cool and calm, fun and easy going. And you will think of her as too serious, no fun, and too up-tight.

But it isn’t about personality. Because when you shoot, we both fall, for I am her and she is me.

So from now on, I will call it for what it is. I will invite you to conversations and endeavour to elegantly deconstruct the patriarchy and false manhood that has defined your vernacular and your very being.

And you should know – you have not battered or broken me. Not by any means. But I have robbed you of an opportunity to grow and to change – to be the type of man that I could respect and admire.

So I will continue to be brilliant and bold and beautiful. And I will exist without apology, without excuses, without reserve. But I will no longer walk away from calling it what it is. Harassment.