“You Shouldn't Have Let Him Grab You”
The perennial problem with mansplaining.
Every so often I get an online comment from someone who — and I really do believe this — is very well-meaning. The author, operating from their own experiences and their own personal space (prejudices and issues, too) offers me unsolicited advice when I write about something that they may perhaps share in terms of life experience.
Most of the time I have no issue with this, except when it comes from a man telling me as a woman what I should or shouldn’t do or have done as it pertains to offensive male behavior.
Mansplaining writ large.
This morning, in response to a story I wrote about getting crushed against a large man’s body without my permission, I got this:
Okay, you don’t like to be touched for whatever reason so why allow yourself to be put in that situation!
He goes on, and again, I sincerely believe he means well. But this is the issue I have with male advice for women who get grabbed.
First, I had no reason to believe that the person involved, who was a referral from a mutual friend, would do anything other than respond to my outstretched hand, proffered as a handshake.
