Repsect

I've always known that most guys don't treat most girls with respect. I generally, however, surround myself with people who have at least some respect for members of the opposite gender. The usual reaction when my friends and I see an attractive woman walk by, is a deliberate eye contact with each other, wherein we both slightly nod and recognize the beauty in front of us. That is basically all that I had experienced--until now. You know how you always hear about guys "hollerin'" at girls? Well I thought it was only something from movies. It isn't. I was pretty disgusted.

When I was in Long Beach for a rugby game the other week, we had arrived early to the game, and so the whole team was just milling about aimlessly. There were some bleachers that we were set up on, and behind the bleachers was a fence. After a short while, many of the guys realized that there was a track on the other side of this fence, and lo and behold there were females running about on it, sprinting, jogging, and doing hurtles. Within minutes there were probably fifteen guys standing on the bleachers, resting their arms on the fence, yelling at the women who were doing said activities.

"Sup Mah."

"Damn, guuuuurl, Check dose titties!"

"Chu been working dat ass gurl!?!"

"I seen chu lookin' at me gurl!"

Some of the girls looked extremely uncomfortable; this is only the tip of the iceberg of the things that were said. I don't even recall some of the other things, but these were definitely some of the more mild ones. Honestly, I was taken aback. Sure, everyone knows that this is what is going on inside nearly every guy's head for 90% of his life, but most of us learn to control it.

While some of the girls looked uncomfortable, the worst part is that I honestly couldn't tell if the other ones were annoyed, disturbed, or enjoying it. Either they were really good actors at pretending that they didn't care what all my team mates were yelling at them, or it happens to them so much that they have become desensitized by it.

I could tell that their coach didn't appreciate what was going on, but I could also tell that even he didn't want to tell fifteen burly dudes to stop harassing his track team. He gave us a few looks of annoyance, then just pretended that we didn't exist.

Now I can't say that I have ever experienced sexual harassment (Maybe emotional...) but I feel like it is something that I wouldn't thoroughly enjoy. I guess I just thought that some things would be common knowledge such as what is appropriate to say to another person, and what isn't; I guess it is just something that some people have to learn. The worst part about this is that society seems to have become desensitized to manners like this--I was embarrassed for the women who were running track, and also on behalf of my teamates who clearly don't share the same perspective on people as I do.

Some people deserve a little more respect than they recieve.