This is why we need feminism.

Yesterday, I was driving a U-Haul (see below for explanation). This thing was much larger than I was anticipating. You see, I rented a 10 foot truck. Naturally, they did not have a 10' truck available when I reserved it 3 days in advance. So to make up for that they gave me a bigger truck (14') for the same price. In theory, this was pretty cool. But when you're driving through Chicago on the Friday of Labor Day weekend at 3pm that extra 4' is the worst thing in the whole world.

Long story short, I hit another moving truck's mirror with my giant mirror. He shouldn't have parked like such a dickhole, U-Haul should have had the right goddamn truck for me, and I should have been a little more careful. I soon learned that the man parked like a dickhole because he is one.

By this point, Danny (that one guy commonly known as my boyfriend) is outside and this frantic man comes up yelling, "HOW YOU DRIVE, HOW YOU NO SEE? YOU NOT SEE?! I CALL POLICE!"  and I kindly tell him that won't be necessary because it's a mirror. Note: If I had been alone, I would have let him call the police. He ignores me and defers to Danny.  Only then, does he listen. I let it go because he's frantic and foreign and is afraid of being screwed over or fired because it is a company truck. 

So he's calm(ish) and we've talked him out of calling the police. He calls his boss and he hands the phone to Danny and demands Danny speaks with Sam (presumably his boss). Now I'm just annoyed with this idiot because he is being an idiot. I'm shaky but I'm not being a bitch (yet). I am still in the truck, in the driver's seat, so I kindly remind him that I was driving the truck so he should hand the phone to me next time. 

So we find that Sam is really cool and I tell Danny to let him know I can give him cash for the repairs and give him my information if anything costs more. With the way Dickhole is acting, you would think that I broke his whole door off. I stay in the truck far away from Dickhole because I can't deal with him without flipping out. Danny goes to investigate the damage. We find that the only damage is cracked glass. CRACKED MIRROR GLASS. This man is about to have an aneurysm over cracked glass. So immediately I start thinking that maybe he doesn't have the right/any insurance or citizenship so he thinks he's going to lose his job. Anyone that freaks out like that must have bigger problems. 

My parents arrive to help move and I explain to them why there is a psycho pacing around and why Danny is on the phone with a stranger etc etc. My mom walks up first and he looks at her. My dad is shortly behind. He shakes my dad's hand. NOTE: He does not shake my mom's hand. 

OHHH OKAY SO THAT'S WHY YOU WON'T TALK TO ME. BECAUSE I'M A WOMAN. CONFIRMED. OKAY DICKHOLE GAME ON.

He continues to hand the phone to Danny to speak with Sam every time he doesn't understand what we're telling him. To an extent, it's a language barrier. But to a greater extent he is not trying. When someone tells you one thing and you pull your phone out and yell TALK TO SAM, you've given up. I call U-Haul (no damage to the U-Haul truck) to get the information for Dickhole to make a claim. The whole time, he keeps looking at me while I'm on hold and asking Danny what I'm doing. I tried to tell him and he talks over me to ask Danny. 

I'M RIGHT HERE TRYING TO TELL YOU, SIR. 

Finally I get all the information for this sub-human chauvinist and I am tired of speaking through a translator, because apparently Dickhole can't speak to women. I get out of the truck and try to talk to him. This time, he calls Sam and I extend my hand to take his phone before he can offer to let someone take it. I speak with Sam. Sam tells me to give all the information to his driver. 

This is the moment I am most proud of: "I am trying to do that but he seems incapable."

AND THEN DICKHOLE DOESN'T EVEN HEAR ME BECAUSE HE'S NOT LISTENING.

So it is sorted out. Dickhole leaves, but not before shaking Danny's hand and my dad's. 

...................

You guys, I'm not saying I didn't mess up. I did. The issue here that I'm trying to point out is how this man is perpetuating awful societal norms. At one point, he even looked at Danny and said "How she not see?" and laughed. Like he's his friend or some shit.

Can we take a minute to see how this situation would have played out had Danny not been there? This man very aggressively approached me and had zero regard for anything I was trying to tell him. He was going to call the police for cracked glass. The second he walked up he was intending to threaten me. When he saw Danny he changed his stature, but when he spoke to me he was still aggressive. I am a 23-year-old female. He is a 40-something male. The fact that he felt safer than he did after I damaged his property is not okay. The fact that my first instinct was to lock my door and stay in the truck is problematic. He did not give my mother or me a single ounce of respect. I understand he was mad at me, but I was certain this stemmed far deeper than a cracked mirror when he treated my mother the exact same way he treated me: incapable, stupid, a joke.

How do you think his wife views herself? Imagine he has a daughter, how do you think he views her?How do you think he'll raise her to think of herself? And when any male treats her like that, it will seem okay because that's what a male is to her. And the idea of him having sons is even more terrifying, because he is raising the next generation of men that will think of women as nothing but mindless decorations, helpless and dumb. NOTE: I understand that I assume he is straight and married, but based on his behavior and the way he treated other males as the authority, he left me no other option. 

IMAGINE: a strong young female, unknown to him, makes a mistake and he makes sure there is no way she could feel like that situation would have been diffused had she been alone. Imagine he made this woman feel that she was unsafe in the middle of the day in one of the largest cities in the country, in the world. Imagine he spends his days like this, making women he has never met and will never see again feel weak and helpless. He is not the only man doing this. There are too many.

And after everything, a car drove past while everyone was loading the moving truck. My back was to them, they honked and I turned to look, hoping it was a friend. They smiled, waved, hollered. It was a group of men. I am in one of the largest cities in America, in the middle of the day, constantly reminded that I am never safe.

Feminism is not about belittling men. It is about allowing women to feel secure in the same situations that men feel secure. In their work, in their homes, on the streets, in cars, on sidewalks.

This is why we need feminism.