Throughout my adult life, there's been micro-aggressions by men. The same kind of men who are currently all over twitter and facebook being all outraged but they aren't murdering bastards like this man so they can shout NAMALT and chide us for being afraid of them.
But it IS them who scare us. It's the guy who tries to talk to you at the bus stop. The cat-caller. The guy who asks you for a light, asks you do you have a boyfriend, asks you why are you being such a bitch, he's only trying to be friendly. The man who tells you to cheer up it'll never happen. The one who says "smile love" or "cheer up love it'll never happen" or "you'd be quite pretty if you smiled"
The man who leans in past you in the supermarket for the ketchup and brushes off your breast deliberately. The one who squeezes past you in an aisle even though there's ample room to get past without touching you, just so he can rub his penis off your bottom. The man who rushes past you in the street pretending to be so much in a hurry that he accidentally 'stumbles' and feels you up. The hand thrust at your vagina in a concert crowd. The manspreader on the bus invading your leg space because his bollocks are more important than your comfort. The leering glances. The appraisal as if I'm a piece of meat he's thinking of buying. The abuse when I politely turn down a dance or a drink or a date.
It's the man who has one more thrust after you asked him to stop during sex. The man who takes a girl home knowing if she was actually sober, she wouldn't sleep with him. The man who pesters you for a sex act you don't want to do. Or sulks if he doesn't get laid. The man who shares your intimate pictures with his whatsapp group. The man who sends you unsolicited dick pics.
It's the sexist fucker in work who thinks because I've tits, I'm the only one who knows how to work the dishwasher or that should be making sure there's milk for his tea, or that I should automatically know where the cloths are kept. The one who calls me "good girl" even though I'm 47 years of age. The senior staff member at work who decided that because you are pleasant and smile at people, it's a come-on and makes your job miserable when you set him straight.
It's the leery local oddball who my partner says is 'harmless' yet I and other women can all get the whiff of both hatred and want off him towards us. Its the men who send you unasked for messages on social media despite you clearly having your status set to 'married'.
So I don't really buy NAMALT. Too many men that consider themselves part of that group still do things that intimidate, unsettle or scare women and it's so ingrained in them they don't even realise it or if they do, they don't see it as wrong.
Heading towards middle age and the invisibility that I seem to have acquired for the most part is blissful. Like that far away car alarm that was going off for so long you are used to it so when it finally stops it takes you a while to pinpoint why you feel at peace all of a sudden. But I know it only means they've moved onto younger targets instead. That makes me so very sad and angry and I feel helpless.
This outrage will fade. The hand-wringers will stop. The proposed laws that they say they'll change will slide into oblivion unchanged. The rape jokes and nude pictures and low level harassment will resume as before. And when the next time the news tells us a woman has been attacked on her way home from work these men will turn to their wives, girlfriends, sisters, mothers and daughters without a trace of irony to tell them to be careful on their way home because of 'all the wierdos out there'.
But they can shove NAMALT up their arse.