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When A Woman Has To Cross the Street Because a Man Is Approaching There’s Something Messed Up With Our Society
Men have to do better
Last night after dinner I took a walk to the convenience store up on Runnymede. The two block stretch of street I traveled was alive with cars, but there were no other pedestrians.
Heading north, I saw a lone woman coming towards me. When she was about fifty yards away, she paused for a moment and looked towards the other side of the busy street before continuing.
It seemed to me as though she’d seen me approaching, and considered crossing the street. Because she saw me approaching.
I could be wrong. She was half a block away, it was dark under the streetlights, and maybe I imagined the pause and the look. Or maybe she had planned to cross anyway and was waiting for a break in traffic.
But it didn’t feel that way.
I’m not an imposing figure. I’m middle-aged, and of middling size. I don’t walk with the “You looking at me, fuckhead?” swagger of the boys who drink beer down at the park.
But I’m a man, and that’s enough to raise a red flag for a woman walking by herself at night.
