A Man's World ( An essay for my New Journalism class)

1632 Main Street

As a college student, I’ve been to my fair share of parties; most of us have. Dressed in tight fitting jeans, a cute top, my lips painted a shade of red, and my eyes adorned with a shimmery shadow. Every girl has done it, we like to go out and embellish our best features and have fun with our friends. Personally, I don’t dress for anyone but myself and I guess my Instagram followers who will hopefully admire my laughing face alongside best friends, showing that even my serious self can have fun sometimes. This particular night didn’t get those pictures though. This night was cut short after I aggressively had a private part of my body grabbed at by a drunk football recruit looking for his own kind of “good time”. Being the assertive self-assured woman I am, I did not hesitate to call, this so called future division three football star, out on his disgusting behavior but I was quickly cut off and cut down. Since this possible recruit was going to be such an amazing asset to our beautiful campus and our phenomenal football team his host couldn’t let me ruin his ego or his fun. I was shewed away a brushed under the rug until I likely became the locker room talk the following week. This is a football player’s campus and I’m just trying to get an education on it.

Cardio Center

Sweaty, out of breath, and constantly checking how much time I have remaining I keep on pushing my legs on the elliptical sliders. I’m no Olympian but I’m not in the worst shape either. My trips to the gym aren’t about losing weight but more about getting a little more muscle definition and relieving some stress. This trip started like every other, I set off with an interval workout on the elliptical for cardio and a little leg workout and then planned to move onto a floor mat to work on some abs and whatever else I felt like doing that day. The weight machines kind of intimidated me. All the different pulleys and levers and various levels of weights that I just didn’t know exactly how to use. I opted to only use those when the gym was a little emptier and this specific day it was packed. Despite the dense population in the gym that day it still startled me when I felt a firm tap on my shoulder mid stride. I don’t exactly enjoy being touched in general but in the middle of a workout as sweat poured out of me I was much less than thrilled about this disturbance but I turned my attention to the perpetrator anyways. The man tapping on my shoulder was well built and towered over me despite my slight elevation on the machine. I didn’t even get a chance to ask what he needed before he proceeded to tell me, “hun, you’ll never lose weight with a workout like that, they have a specific setting just for fat burn,” after which he reached and pressed the button to change my workout. “See,” he said, “it’s right there.” Let me tell you though, my sight wasn’t the problem in this situation, I was very aware of the fact that there was a fat burn setting on the elliptical, my voice was the problem here. I truly could not come up with the words to say to this man. All I could do was shake my head step off of the machine and walk towards the coat rack. I wasn’t surprised when the man had the nerve to call after me about not even giving him a thank you. I continued to ignore him but if he or anyone similar is reading this here is the thank you, you deserve. Thank you for “mansplaining” something I already understood and thank you for making me uncomfortable and self-conscious in a setting where I worked very hard to get away from those feelings, my hero, thanks for rescuing me when I clearly didn’t need your rescuing.

Escanaba High School

The best four years of your life. High school is its own ecosystem. You have your predators and your prey. You even have plants, the wallflowers, who are just a subcategory of the prey. The predators, they don’t typically lash out with their fists but instead bare their teeth in unpleasant grins as obnoxious words and laughs slither out of their lips. Me, being the wallflower, often tried to blend into the black lockers or brown plastic desks but my camouflage didn’t work well. The words crept up on me but typically didn’t come as a surprise. I adapted to have a quick tongue but not very thick skin. I vividly remember heading late to my algebra two class, which was a hellish experience all on its own. I stopped to grab my calculator from my locker and then there were those disgusting laughs, like a witch’s cackle actually. I quickly turned to leave before they reached me, as it had been an exhausting day and the predators had been at my throat all week but I wasn’t quick enough. They were alongside me in a few quick strides. I’d had enough. I asked what their problem was and asked why they had to constantly be after me. They of course ignored the question and instead went for the kill. “Erica how could anyone love, or even like, a girl like you.” A girl like me? I still don’t know what they meant by a girl like me. Here were two boys telling me I wasn’t enough of a girl to be loved. High school obviously wasn’t an environment for a “girl like me” or maybe any girls at all. Those boys were ruthless.