The other night, two friends and I were on our way to Gus’ Pub, and, on Agricola Street, we encountered a man and two of his friends coming the opposite direction. The most obvious guy was a large, fairly intimidating dude who was staggering and holding a beer in each hand. He came up to us and, slurring his words, asked where to find Spring Garden Road. My two friends backed off and I was definitely wary of him, but because I’m used to encountering mostly good-natured drunk guys, I told him to follow Agricola Street, keep going straight, and he would eventually come across Spring Garden Road. I didn’t give him detailed directions because I wanted to keep my encounter with this guy to a minimum.
Then, they started laughing at us and said that that they were “doing a survey” to find out how many people in Halifax would help this guy out, because they thought that people in this city were “assholes who wouldn’t give someone in need the time of day.”
I tried explaining how this guy didn’t exactly seem like the sort of person that strangers would feel comfortable around. He was HUGE, carrying beer, seemed very drunk and therefore potentially a dangerous person. But they were insistent that we were “scared shitless” of them.
This is when one of this guy’s friends—smaller, lankier, but looking like a pretty scrappy Tough Dude with neck tattoos and full sleeves—turned to a woman who was walking by herself across the street and started yelling, “HEY, YOU PIECE OF SHIT! HEY! FUCK YOU.”
I asked him if he knew her. He said he didn’t, so I asked, “Why the fuck did you just yell at her, then?” thinking that I would play the role of The Pedagogical Feminist, explain why it might be kind of a shitty thing to yell at a woman who was walking alone at night when he was with a group of large male friends. I pressed him on it. “Did you think about how that might have scared the shit out of her, maybe? Why did you think it was OK to do that?”
To which he replied, “because, who fucking cares?”
I lost it. This asshole just yelled aggressively at a woman walking by herself, and I felt this thing in the back of my head just snap. I started going off on him.
It ended anti-climatically. I told him he was a shithead, that he should think twice about what he was doing, the effect he had on people, etc. I was mean, and it felt good. As my friends and I left, I called over my shoulder that I thought he was a fucking asshole and that this “social experiment” of theirs was rude, mean bullshit. He insulted my appearance, and that was that.
People like this are the reason that women feel unsafe in their own neighbourhoods, and this is one of the reasons women can’t walk by themselves at night without fear of verbal or physical harassment. Were these guys physical with us? No. Were they complete shitheads who deserved every vitriolic word I could spew at them? Absolutely.
But I still felt powerless, because did he get the message, did he understand where I was coming from? No. He wasn’t receptive to anything I had to say, even-tempered or angry. In the end, this guy left feeling vindicated by the fact that he was criticized by someone wearing glasses that weren’t his aesthetic preference.
This is all just to say that this is still a fucking problem. There are so many men out there who have absolutely no awareness of the power they have to make women feel unsafe and uncomfortable, and have no idea whatsoever that it ISN’T FUNNY, it ISN’T COOL and it’s VERY DANGEROUS AND SHITTY. I wish there was more that I could have done without putting myself in harm’s way, but if I ever see them again, I will cut them no slack, and I’m spreading the word that they are among the worst kind of men: the kind who intimidate and posture without any mature conception of the repercussions that their behaviour can have.
Fuck them.
Ainslie Moss is a BFA grad from Mount Allison who likes to ruffle feathers and tell stories. You can find her on Twitter at @ainsliemoss.
Send your essay ideas for consideration to voice@thecoast.ca
This article appears in Jun 13-19, 2013.
Thank you for not just getting scared and staying quiet
Situations like this suck and yes, I do agree that some people are complete assholes randomly for no reason. However, I do have one problem with this letter. I too have been faced with similar situations while walking alone in Halifax and am always weary when I am approaching a group of strangers – I’m a man. While I don’t think this letter implies that all men are assholes (thankfully), it does seem to imply that only women are victims. I can understand that the angle here is that women are faced with these situations for no reason, I can’t help but feel like the letter enables the men vs. women mindset rather than what it should be: assholes vs. everyone else.
Yeah, because men roam the streets feeling safe and not intimidated at all. Have you seen the stats on random acts of violence in this shithole?
“Drunk, bigger than you, assholes, yelling at strangers” is not a female problem, no more than it is an asian problem, a black problem, a handicap problem. Same thing would have happened no matter who it was that encountered them. Fuck off, grow up, and read the news. We all deal with this every weekend, it’s what happens when you live in a city with a huge university population – hell, it happens in New York,Toronto, every city in the world! In real life, you have to deal with people who scare you.
You can tell its summertime in Halifax when you start getting guys yelling things at you as they drive by in their cars. Last summer a guy drove by me as I was walking home alone at night and offered: “Hey! You wanna get raped?”.
If ever a situation was screaming out for the “Rashomon” treatment, it’s this one.
People need to respect each other, but dumb people do need to be marginalized. Try to ignore the meat-heads; they are just angry about how much of an idiot they have become.
Really?? You met a few rude, drunk guys outside of a pub and this encounter compelled you to write an essay about how men in general are “behaving badly.” Okay, this should come as no surprise but some men are nice, some are assholes, and most fall somewhere in between. The exact same thing goes for women. Large numbers of the asshole variety of both men and women are always to be found at pubs and other drinking establishments. A good rule to go by in life is that if you spend less time at bars and more time enjoying healthy activities then you will meet more nice men and women and less assholes.
First of all I have to say I really admire the way you dealt with the situation. Having said that I have to take issue with the headline of this article and the general tone used throughout. I’ve experienced this type of type of harassment—usually from drunk guys—at least a half dozen times that I can think of. Maybe this isn’t a huge number, but the point is it’s not unheard of. Whether it’s hearing “Faggot!” shouted from moving car, to situations eerily similar to the one you describe here, it’s always unpleasant and always scary in a way I’m not sure I quite understand. The fact is that 99% of men don’t do this kind of thing and really hate it when others do. So to read the headline “Men are behaving like assholes and I’m sick of it” is really hurtful. Ainslie, why the generalization? (to use an analogy, even if you had one or many negative experience(s) I don’t think you’d ever dream of headlining an article about ‘the behaviour of Blacks’). The effect of this kind of stereotyping is not just, as you describe, that it “ruffles feathers” (which maybe you feel is a good thing): besides being factually wrong, it just serves to make people defensive. These are the people who, if it were written differently —and I mean slightly: 3 or 4 sentences reworked—would be very much on your side—as they should be!
Again, I admire your courage in how you dealt with this very unpleasant situation and especially (as you describe it at least) the way you laid out to them in clear terms exactly what was wrong with that type of behaviour (and kudos also for being able to stay level-headed enough to do so even AS you were experiencing it), even though the message clearly sailed wayy over their heads. But by lashing out not only at the people who harass, but the GROUP that they belong to, the article needlessly creates divisiveness, which leads to a defensiveness which is inevitable as it is counter-productive, and this ultimately hurts the case you’re trying to make. And that’s a real shame because the case you’re trying to make is mine too, everyone else’s who wants to be able (and for others to be able) to walk through the city in safety.
Thanks for writing this. I walk a lot at night, and for the most part feel safe. But there’s been times when I’ve been yelled at from a car that’s come dangerously close to hitting me, or by people who I refuse to give smokes to (what part of “I don’t smoke, sorry” do people misconstrue as “I have smokes but am withholding them because I’m a bitch” anyway?) but I think a lot of it has to do with the culture of alcohol consumption in Halifax. There are tons and tons of nice guys, and when I walk around my neighbourhood, I mostly feel safe because I know the majority of my neighbours are decent people who look out for one another. But there are no bars in my neighbourhood, fewer students and people in their early 20s, and mostly hard working families who don’t have time to go around harassing others.
Admire the way she dealt with the situation? The appropriate way to deal with random drunks you meet on the street at night is to NOT engage them. Duh.
Probably the lamest Voice of the City so far.
Thank you themax
Good to get vocal about the issue. I’m a man, over 6 feet tall, and I get yelled at frequently by drunk people in public, cars, on stoops…etc.. I too find it intimidating to walk around at night, though maybe it’s not the same. If I were to be as in-your-face to those drunk guys you mentioned, I am sure they would have punched me in the face. idk
Come down off your high horse. Come and see that all of us in society have been victimized, made to feel uncomfortable and just generally been f*%$ed with by assholes..
I wish the author and people like her could see beyond their own biased filters. All this talk I see everywhere about ‘male privilege’, well it seems to me there is a new ‘feminist privilege’ which allows women to spew whatever prejudicial, anti-male BS they want and not get called out for it.
What exactly made these actions sexist? Because some guy yelled at another person across the road who just so happened to be a female? Because a guy, said that the author, a female, had ugly glasses? I think it’s pretty likely that these guys would harass anyone, regardless of gender.
These are not sexist actions directed females by males on a basis of gender discrimination; these are actions directed at humans by other humans on the basis of just being drunk assholes. I feel that writing like this only serves to reinforce a gulf between genders, and further perpetuates a victim mentality amongst women. Seems to me that gender doesn’t even enter into the situation, except in how the author perceived it in her own mind.
“it seems to me there is a new ‘feminist privilege’ which allows women to spew whatever prejudicial, anti-male BS they want and not get called out for it.”
There’s nothing new about it. It’s been a standard element of feminazi agit-prop since Gloria Steinem first noticed her teats starting to sag.
The said “assholes” in this article are really getting the last laugh here. Likely they were drunk and trying to draw attention to themselves, through explicit behavior, and the writer gave into that. I am particularly put off at the way the writer makes descriptions of the males appearances; “HUGE and carrying beer” or “looking like a scrappy tough dude, with neck tattoos and full sleeves” eluding that tattoos or big men are scary and make people uncomfortable. His actions were wrong, but what difference does his appearance make? Afterwards the writer mentions how he insulted her appearance….hmm, I’ll say no more. I’d like to also comment on the statement about men who “have no awareness of the power they have to make women feel unsafe and uncomfortable”; Well, I am a woman and I don’t give any man or woman the power to make me feel that way, because for myself, if anyone intimidates me, I have given them this power. In those cases I’ve allowed them to make me feel insecure. So to the writer: Thank you for writing this article and letting them have the power by being a bit of an ass hole yourself.
You said it perfectly ivan.
“People like this are the reason that women feel unsafe in their own neighbourhoods.”
Which, as a man, drive me batshit. I’m sorry for dudes like this. And everyone here who’s giving the author a hard time should think about what it might be like to be cornered like this on a public street and feel completely uncertain about what an aggressive, drunk, clearly volatile person who’s physically stronger than you might do.
I would like to see stats on whether this is a Halifax problem, however. I’ve witnessed and occasionally been subject to many situations like this, all over the country, although never in Halifax, where I live and therefore spend most of my time. I’d like to see the stats, if any exist, on whether random assault and intimidation is more common here than elsewhere. Not convinced that it is.
Nothing better than a bunch of yahoos showing how tough they are when bolstered by ‘liquid’ courage and in a group. Any one of them alone would not likely say squat to anyone. That aside, to say it’s not a male issue, well, it’s rare that a gang of women would accost anyone, although it does happen. Most crimes of assalt, domestic abuse, child abuse, etc, etc, are perpetrated by males. Time to move out of the caves guys.
To all those trashing the author of this piece, I think it’s incredibly brave of this young lady to stand up to those clowns and for that she deserves to be applauded. In a perfect world, nobody should be shouting at others for shits and giggles. Young immature people tend toward bad behavior when in groups and with free time. Add alcohol to the mix and you’re almost assured of some problem.
I think what a lot of guys here miss is that men are physically intimidating to women in situations like that. Girls could do the same thing to guys and it’s just as obnoxious and rude but not as scary. This is not about feminism, it’s about reasonable behavior and the physical differences between men and women. We as men never fear for the possibility of rape. Yes it could happen but, unless you reside in prison, highly unlikely. With women, it’s always possible especially where hormones and booze intermingle.
This is why what this lady did was awesome. She faced her deepest fears and gave as good as she got.
No, I’m not enthralled with the title of this piece either as these men represent a small portion of the male population. Most likely these louts had no intention of sexual assault but women walking past them don’t know that.
Chimpy-chimpanzee nailed it on the head with her last paragraph. Anyone (men, women, cats, dogs) who feels/acts like a victim is going to be treated like one, simple as that. I too, take offense to the headline, although it served its purpose as it made me read the article. So, you know, good job there… It also spurred me to write next weeks Voice of the City. I already have the headline “Women are behaving like jealous, petty, backstabbing bitches, and I’m sick of it!” Seems to fit the same standard of journalistic quality we’ve stooped to here. I don’t have the body written yet, but I’ve found that to be useless in most articles you read anyway.
I’m getting off topic. Near as I can tell from what you wrote Ainslie, if you hadn’t stopped to tell the first guy how threatening he “looked” and just let them go, you’d have probably walked in the bar before the other guy yelled to the lady across the street, and none of the above would have been written about.
What did that woman do anyway? Sounds like she just walked away. Maybe she took those empty hollow words for what they were, just empty hollow words. We have the power as human beings to choose our reaction to most situations (emergencies and apocalypses notwithstanding). Words only hurt if you let them. I only learned that two years ago, and I wish I learned it way earlier in life it would have saved me tons of grief. But I haven’t felt insulted since. I’m sure insulting things have been said to me but I don’t view them as such. I’m sure she thought he was an asshole too (who doesn’t?) but I bet she didn’t let it ruin her night.
My aunt lived with a drunk for decades.
She said rule one of dealing with drunks: Don’t tell them their shortcomings and don’t try to rationalize with them or explain why they upset you. Because their brains can’t process information like that (try doing any sort of self-reflection or rational thinking when YOU’RE that drunk and if you remember the experiment you’ll see what i mean)
I’ve also had my fair share of experience with drunks. This is completely an accurate description of how their brains DO NOT work.
So while you were well within your rights to say “Dude, i think you’re annoying and that’s probably why no one likes you”, it probably wasn’t the most useful thing to say. A chilly “Well nice to meet you then, bye” would have been more effective.
I’m not telling you how it SHOULD be. I’m telling you how the drunk brain operates. I realize you may not feel good about this and that makes me feel bad. But science and biology don’t give a fuck. It’s how it is.
I know women who get this aggressive and mean when they drink too. Some people just can’t handle their booze. SO as much as you (and i sort of) want to make this an issue about feminism, this is an issue about mean drunks who come in BOTH genders and will be mean to fucking anybody they encounter because they’re drunk and can’t handle it. When you’re that drunk, someone far away isn’t even visible except as a blob. They were screaming at something alive that they saw. They’d do the same to you, each other, another guy or a cat.
But it’s awesome and a show of total bravery that you stood up to a drunk that doesn’t even remember one iota of this. Hopefully the woman walking across the street does. 🙂 Because i’m sure she appreciates it and that’s the whole point.
Just be more careful around drunks.
Plus, as a person of science and reason, this offends me.
If i were an alien species who had never encountered humans before, I would read your title and your subsequent bitch and think that you had just created an accurate profile of a male human.
What that means is that you’re saying “Men are behaving like assholes” because a man representing an EDGE CASE (Drunk, late at night, dumb) behaved like an asshole.
It’s like saying “This one great dane ate some acid he found in my friend’s pocket and bit a kid this one time. Why are all great danes such assholes????”
Edge case. NOT typical use case.
The reality is that most men on any given day are NOT drunk and behaving stupidly. They are brothers, sons, fathers and husbands. They are friends and, you know, just regular people.
You can’t build a case against all men because a drunk one pissed you off. That’s just bad, BAD scientific method.
And FINALLY… You are describing a situation that is technically illegal. Drunk and disorderly in public.
Why didn’t you call the cops and ask them to put his ass in the tank for the night if you’re so concerned about the public safety? I’ve actually done that before. Someone who got really hammered and tried to show everyone what a badass streetfighter they were by picking fights with everybody. And then they peed on something.
So you call the cops. Get them inside so they can sleep it off.
ahalifaxlady
Your response was “No. You wanna get shot?” I hope?
While this essay is certainly more of a cathartic release of obvious frustration and anger than it is a well-formulated and thought-out piece on intimidation and respect (or lack thereof)… I’m glad she wrote it. I’m glad the author personalized an incident we’re all subject to, regardless of gender, age, race, orientation, or general aesthetic appearance – as many of you pointed out.
It happens every day, sure, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t address it just as constantly as it happens. While I don’t agree with the sweeping generalizations in the language she used, her thoughts still force us to think about what it means to respect and be kind to others on a constant basis, in a world where many people’s first thought, unbelievably, is still I can talk to / yell whatever I want at this person “because, who fucking cares?”
While I do disagree with the language she used, and the generalizations she’s made, it’s almost comical (however saddening) to me that the point of respect was entirely lost on people reading the piece and commenting who are saying things like “grow up, fuck off.”
Not disagreeing with the lack of respect (throw in common courtesy and basic human empathy for good measure) that has become so endemic in society that we are for more likely to take note of those rare occasions when simple decency steps to the fore. But please tell me, exactly how much respect did Ainslie expect to inculcate with her “Pedagogical Feminist” schtick? By that point how much did she expect to receive? A hectoring harpy spewing Wimmin’s Studies 101 rhetoric is going to change NO minds. Gales of derisive laughter are the best response she could hope for.
As a woman and a citizen of Halifax, I am disappointed in A. Moss’s article “Men are behaving like assholes and I’m sick of it”. I agree that some men do behave like assholes but women are not as powerless as Moss seems to think. Nor was Moss powerless in her situation. She was just… for lack of a better word, stupid.
To quote Moss ‘s comment about her interactions with a group of rude drunk men on Agricola Street, “I wish that there was more that I could have done without putting myself in harms way…” I am here to say there was more she could have done any plenty she shouldn’t have!
If you see a very large very drunk man or group of men staggering down our streets yelling profanities and carrying open liquor DO NOT ‘put yourself in harms way’ by interacting with them. DO discretely duck around a corner get on your cell phone, call 911 and report the assholes. Not only will this ensure they won’t be harassing any other women but, there is nothing like a night in the drunk tank to teach guys like that a lesson.
The only reason those guys got the better of you Ms. Moss is NOT because you were powerless it is because you failed to exercise good judgement.
“women are behaving like whiny victim bitches, and im tired of it”…..
this writer probably made it all up just to write a story, and she purposefully titled it and marketed it as a ploy to get internet traffic and attention. She looks like one of those lame Fine Arts lesbo’s that have a liberal p.c. pickle up her ass
describes writer as ‘likes to ruffle feathers’…ohhhh, how controversial and fringe to regurgitate and invent and exaggerate, like a liberal glen beck with smaller boobs
Some men are assholes and some women are assholes .. actually I think (that means my opinion,not a fact)that most people these days are assholes but not all. There are also people that don’t even realize they are assholes like the hypocrites that thought the author was wrong in saying all men were assholes, which with that I agree but if you said in turn said that all women were playing victim or all bitches or anything else like that then how are you doing different than her and putting down all because of one so if you do same thing as someone you feel is doing wrong then you bring yourself down to that same level and you are no better than that person ..now with that being said getting back to the subject at hand being drunk is no excuse for disrespect there is no excuse for it and if you allow disrespect you will keep getting disrespect and it is probably more intimadating to a woman because most men are physically stronger than women as in I don’t think men would be as intimadated by a woman in the same situation which also makes them that do act this way also a bully but there is also emotional abuse which women as well as men do which in my opinion is just as bad as being physical because bruises go away in a few days but the emotion from that stays with you and emotional abuse does the same thing and can last a lifetime and affect your metal health but that is usually coming from someone you care about not a stranger,a drunk dumbass on the street that can’t handle their alcohol but there still is no excuse for disrespect and it should not be tolerated regardless of gender and you stand up for yourself a bully knows you not scared or intimidated by them and that takes their power they feel they have over you so I think you should always stand up for what you believe in or stand up for yourself as long as you don’t feel like your life is endangered because there is a major difference in being brave and being stupid .. disrespect should not be tolerated regardless of gender and sinking to another’s level and being hypocritical doesn’t make you any better than the person who doing it first if I you don’t like people are then why the hell would you wanna be like them ?
Wow, men. Look in a fucking mirror. Really, why is it so IMPOSSIBLE for you to self-reflect or take criticism from a woman? Because you are pathetic sexist pieces of shit the world would be better off without, that is why. Pathetic and weak and every bad thing you call women, that’s all YOU. LOOK IN A MIRROR. Anyway. Great article. Comments prove your point, but none of these shits will ever see that because I guess they lack a brain. No idea how they miss it otherwise. Every time.