Women Don’t Want Your Attention
On A Train Ride Home
*Trigger Warning: This essay depicts sexual violence*
“Please track me,” I texted my parents at 9:28 pm as I entered a quiet, and slightly sketchy, London tube station. I’d moved to London by myself two weeks prior, and requested my parents in the States add me on “Find My Friends.” Just to be safe.
Knowing what I know about women traveling alone, I often do things just to be safe.
On the train, I cozied into a seat in a car that was empty but for two other women traveling alone. “Women flock to women,” I thought to myself, acknowledging the completely vacant car to my right.
As my mom responded to my text with a brief, but affirming, “kk,”’ the voice over the loudspeaker announced that our train was unexpectedly being held for a few minutes at this stop.
While I waited, I saw, through the window, three men in their late twenties sitting together on the platform bench. I quickly looked away, not wanting to catch their eyes, but it was too late: they had already noticed me.
A few minutes later, the tube beeped as the doors began to close slowly. The three men suddenly leaped onto the train, barely making it inside before the doors shut behind them. It was strange how they boarded at the very last second as if something or someone had changed their minds. They then took their seats
one
by
one
directly across from me.
“Really?” I thought as I resisted rolling my eyes, “they could have sat anywhere else.”
As the train pulled out of the station, I looked at all the empty seats as the three men looked at me. With each inch that the train chugged along, I could feel myself capturing more and more of their attention.
My body tightened in discomfort.
Despite speaking another language, these men were clearly talking about me and, more specifically, my cleavage. I wished I was a man in a full business suit instead of a woman in a v-neck bodysuit. I tried to pull my blazer over my chest, and, as I did, they groaned in disappointment, laughing amongst themselves.
Something didn’t feel right.
They had made too many weird choices not to set off alarms in my head. Finding their behaviors odd and unsavory, I began thinking through “what do I do” hypotheticals. Just to be safe.
I’ll get off at my stop at the very last second, I thought, which would give them little to no time to follow me. This plan provided me with comfort, if only for a brief moment.
With each tube stop that went by, the men stayed firmly in their seats with their eyes fixed firmly on my breasts. Each time the doors opened, I hoped they would leave, but they didn’t. Instead, other passengers exited the train.
As the train grew emptier, I grew more fearful.
It was clear I had their attention, but I didn’t know if they had intention. And that’s a scary place to be.
I continued to think through hypotheticals. Just to be safe.
What if they get off at my stop? How long can they head in the same direction as me on the street until I know they are following me? What stores are still open on my walk home that I can go to instead of unintentionally luring these men to my flat? How fast can I run in these heels?
I knew I was outnumbered three to one, and I didn’t like this ratio. In my mind, worst-case scenario, three to one meant being gang raped in an alley somewhere. I shivered. It wasn’t a likely scenario, I reassured myself, but, unfortunately, it also wasn’t off the table. If it could happen to other women, it could happen to me too.
The next stop was mine, and I knew I’d soon feel either a lot better or a whole lot worse.
I stuck to my plan and sprung out of my seat towards the door at the very last second. As my feet crossed onto the platform, I peered back over my shoulder.
The three men were still sitting in their seats as the train pulled away.
My entire body relaxed. “All that worry for nothing,” I thought to myself as I climbed the tube station steps alone.
“Off the tube,” I texted my parents.
On my walk home, I noted what stores were still open. For next time. Just to be safe.
While I walked, I thought about how unfair it was that I spent 20 minutes stressing, planning, and imagining the worst while these men had an enjoyable tube ride at my expense.
The choices of these three men, unbeknownst to them, created an environment that felt unsafe for me. One that felt uncertain. One that they fully controlled.
If only they had sat somewhere else. I could have felt safer. If only they didn’t ogle and discuss me the entire time. I could have felt safer.
Once home, I continued to reflect on how exhausting it is to routinely invest all that mental energy into preemptively protecting myself from men. Yet, I didn’t regret thinking through my options just to be safe.
Women often have to think like I did. I’m not fear-mongering by saying so; public spaces, and especially public transportation, are not gender-blind. These places can be deeply unsafe for women, especially women with marginalized identities and differently-abled bodies.
Women know this because we live it. But men don’t always know the role their presence plays in shaping the perceived safety of an environment. Or rather, men aren’t always aware that what feels good and normal for them in public spaces can often feel threatening or uncomfortable for women.
I’m deeply angered by the mental labor that I, and other women, go through in response to the presence and behaviors of men. Especially when I know that this labor could be cut in half, or entirely removed, if men thought for a few seconds about how they could more consciously engage with these spaces.
The gender-thought gap on public transportation is more alarming, and far wider, than the gap between the train and the platform, and yet you are only cautioned on the latter.
Men, if you don’t have intentions to hurt us, consider thinking about how your behaviors impact the experiences of the women around you, and then make choices that actively align with being non-threatening. When it comes to public spaces, if you identify as “not all men,” then act like it.
My story isn’t novel. In fact, it’s all too mundane. Many who read this far might argue that this essay is inherently superfluous because “nothing happened.” Men who haven’t experienced this might gaslight me as paranoid, dramatic, and potentially even self-centered.
I argue, however, that the normalcy of my experience is its necessity. Men’s lack of understanding of my experience is why this continues to happen.
It should be obvious, but let me remind you:
Women don’t want your attention on a train ride home.
