THE FAIRER SEX

Short Stories on Male Privilege

No. 11

Pennsylvania Avenue

'It's misogynistic in nature to try and control

a woman's sexual presentation of self.'

- Ryan Gosling

I buy my daily newspaper from a news kiosk near my workplace. This kiosk is run by a man with a most peculiar attitude to business: he discourages customers from buying his newspapers.

This attitude has long puzzled me, and one day I challenged him about it.

'I have a question', I said one morning after I'd paid for my paper. 'Why do you always place the newspapers upside down?'

I gestured to the newsstand behind me.

The man exhaled and looked pained.

'Because people will read the papers without buying them', he said.

'Yes, I thought that. But it's rather inconsistent'.

'What do you mean?'

'Well, the publisher uses big text on the front page - I mean headlines. These headlines are there for one reason, and one reason only: to attract passers-by, in the hope they'll buy a copy.'

'Well obviously', he said.

'And you place these newspapers upside down - this makes it difficult to read the headlines, hence you're less likely to sell the newspapers.'

The man scratched his head and looked puzzled.

'Also', I continued', if your policy has any real merit, then why do you display magazines the right way up?'

'Look, mate', he said tersely, 'there are quite a few people in the queue behind you'.

This brings me to that notorious thoroughfare, Pennsylvania Avenue, by which the unwary are led into sexist behaviour. Imagine you're looking out of a skyscraper at Pennsylvania Avenue down below, stretching off into the distance. You are ashamed of yourself; for you know this: you must never look down Pennsylvania Avenue, you must never glance down Pennsylvania Avenue, and under no circumstances must you ever peer down Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact, you must pretend that the curtains are drawn, and that you can see nothing. Pennsylvania Avenue is on full view, but you must pretend that it is not.

When I'm on the London Underground, I see Pennsylvania Avenue quite regularly. When this happens, I take a lengthy survey of the ceiling. I look top right for a minute or so; then top left; then top right again; then top left again. How many light bulbs are there? Do any of the bulbs need replacing? Then I look down at the floor to my right, and at the floor to my left. I do this, because I know that you must never, ever peer down Pennsylvania Avenue. I am a gentleman, after all.

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, recently introduced a new regulation for London transport: the 'anti-staring' law. Make no mistake, 'peering down Pennsylvania Avenue' is one of the things this law is designed to address. Advisory posters are all over the network: 'Intrusive staring of a sexual nature is sexual harassment and is not tolerated. See it or experience it, text British Transport Police'. Anonymous allegations are particularly encouraged. Unsubstantiated and unprovable claims need not be an obstacle to public shaming. The regulation is designed to make everyone feel safer on public transport. (Men and women equally, of course.) We will all sleep easier, safe in the knowledge that we can denounce anyone we dislike for nebulous and subjective infractions.

Last week I narrowly evaded arrest under this very law.

It happened like this.

I was standing on the platform; the train arrived; the doors opened. As usual the vestibule was filled by a dense crowd, but there was just enough space to squeeze in. I grasped one of the overhead handles, and the doors closed.

I was immediately aware of the woman standing close beside me; I was also immediately aware that Pennsylvania Avenue beckoned. Her neckline plunged a long, long way, all the way from Pennsylvania to Ohio, offering, just a few inches below my very own eyes, a plenteous panorama of bounteous bosom - were I to look, which of course I did not; for I kept my pupils under the strictest supervision - I told them not to swivel downwards, and they didn't. Yet, even though I did not peer down Pennsylvania Avenue, this woman still glanced at her own chest, then hitched up her neckline by an inch or so. I'd evidently embarrassed her, not because I peered down Pennsylvania Avenue, but by having the potential to do so. It was probably this distinction that saved me from police arrest.

That day I also walked past the homeless man who sits by the supermarket with his cardboard sign asking for money. I saw a woman stoop to put some coins into his upturned cap. She looked down at her chest and, standing, placed her right hand in the same place. 'You dirty - old - man!' she shouted. 'Filthy perv!'

She kicked his cap; and the homeless man scrambled after the coins that went in all directions.

This is the sort of risk a man takes, when he is caught peering down Pennsylvania Avenue: public shaming, condemnation and obloquy. No matter how obviously Pennsylvania Avenue is shoved in his face, a man must never peer down it. It is not there for him to peer down.

At work I stopped by reception to check that the day's interviewees were on the list. As usual, Pennsylvania Avenue was on generous display. In many years I have never seen our receptionist in turtlenecks or crewnecks; keyholes and cowls have appeared occasionally; but she mostly wears square necklines that fall precipitously down her ample décolletage. A buxom beauty, if ever there was one. The shadowed haven beckoned to me. 'Don’t look at the intermammary cleft', I reminded myself. 'The intermammary sulcus must not even be glanced at'.

When I asked her about the interviewees, she leaned forward to consult the piece of paper on her desk. And when my male instinct realised that I would not allow it to peer down Pennsylvania Avenue, it began shouting in consternation. 'Go on', it said, 'take a quick peek while she's not looking. She'll never know. Have a furtive glance. Go on. Wouldn't that be nice. Phwoar'.

Alas, a few hundred years of civilizational progress were powerless to resist two million years of evolutionary psychology. I gave in.

Worse still, she looked up suddenly while I was in mid-ogle - and caught me in flagrante.

'Hey, my eyes are up here!' she shouted, pointing angrily with two fingers at her own pupils.

I feared she'd make a complaint to HR, but it's been six months now, so it looks like I got away with it.

But let me be clear: when a man looks at a sexual feature of a woman's body that is not only exposed, but also plonked in his field of view, then he is sexually harassing the woman. And when the woman shames the man for looking, she is not by any means sexually harassing him. That is what we mean by 'equality'.

When Luke arrived I began talking to him about selling newspapers: how you want to catch the eye, by not catching the eye. He did not seem too interested.

'What were you doing in the news kiosk?' he asked. 'Buying your monthly copy of Big Jugs?'

'Large Vases, actually. 'That reminds me. The receptionist - the one who thinks she's Jane Russell - this morning she caught me peering down Pennsylvania Avenue'.

'Well, you know what I think. If a woman really must put her jelly-wobblers on display . . . '

'You have a remarkably immature vocabulary for a grown man.'

'Thanks. Booby-doos. Fun bags'. He then laughed. 'I never let women embarrass me like that. I was in the pub with my girlfriend on Saturday. A few tables away there was this girl with an unusual neckline - it was trapezoidal. I've only seen trapezoidal necklines on Victorian dresses. That's what caught my eye - the trapezoid. Then I started thinking how you calculate the area of a trapezoid - two triangles and a rectangle - and she looked up. Well obviously she thought she'd caught me peering down Pennsylvania Avenue, which I wasn't. She responded by folding her arms. Women are strange - they go out in public with their flesh exposed, then resent it if anyone looks'.

'When a man looks', I corrected.

'Quite'.

'Did you feel a sharp stab of elbow in your chest?'

'No, my girlfriend's not like that. She's got an easy-going policy about Pennsylvania Avenue. You can look, but you can't touch. She also says that if it ain't for sale, then don't put it in the window. But then, she doesn't have much in the way of Pennsylvania Avenue. She's more like Gering Steeg'.

'What's Gering Steeg?'

'It's an alleyway in Holland'.

'I see. Well, it wouldn't do to get complacent. The workplace is a difficult enough arena for men to negotiate these days, but now Sadiq Khan's having a go at the public sphere'.

'Yeah, the anti-staring law. There's no way to define staring, for a start. How many seconds? Of course, the distinction between staring, looking and glancing will be entirely up to the woman. If that law doesn't get used politically then I'll be the next Pope. I thought I might ascertain the degree of protection this law affords me. I might stand in a railway carriage, facing a seated woman, 'tackle out', so to speak. If the woman looks at my tackle, I could say "Hey, my eyes are up here!" I'm surely entitled to dress sexually, without being stared at sexually. Then I'd call the emergency number, and the transport police would arrest the woman for staring at my tackle. You see, looking is an act of violation'.

'If you ever decide to conduct this experiment, then I'll visit you in chokey'.

Mid-afternoon I took the escalator to the sixth floor, then walked through the double doors into the corridor.

As I turned the corner, I saw a woman approaching me at a distance of about twenty feet. She looked at me, then down at her chest, then back at me.

As she passed me, she said: 'Only creeps look at cleavage'.

I could hardly have walked into the corridor with my eyes shut - I had to look somewhere! When I turned the corner, my eyes had come to rest briefly on the woman's breasts, which were in my immediate line of sight, after all.

This incident shook me somewhat, as I knew this woman by reputation as well as by experience.

We had this intern in our office, a shy boy with a slight stutter. One day he was seated at his desk when this same woman approached, and bent down close to his face to place a file on his desk. At that moment, he looked like he had a moth in his mouth.

The woman then stood up and said: 'Excuse me, did you just look at my breasts? Can't a lady go about her affairs without being perved on? I'm so embarrassed!'

The intern's face assumed the colour of a tomato.

I have not seen this lad since.

When I returned to the office I told Luke what had happened to me in the corridor.

'I think I'm in the soup', I said.

'I think you are'.

A few days later the summons duly arrived from HR.

I was determined nevertheless to stand up for myself.

'You must treat our female employees with respect', said the HR manager. 'We would never try to control the way a female employee chooses to present herself - that would be misogyny, pure and simple. Men must control themselves - they must control where they look. But women can wear whatever they want.'

'In that case men can look where they want', I said. 'They can hardly look at what they can't see!'

'Not at all. Looking is an act of violation. Men looking at women's cleavage is sexual harassment'.

'Of men or women?'

'Don't get smart with me! You are cleavage-shaming. Men must not weigh women up as sex objects. Staring inappropriately. Checking them out. Leering. Running their eyes over a woman's body. That is the male gaze - the disreputable erotic pleasure that is socially constructed by the patriarchy. The dominant male, and the female he dominates. Men look at women, and women are just there to be looked at by men. That is detrimental to women's self-esteem, among many other things. Men have ogled women with impunity since time immemorial, and it's high time it stopped'.

'In other words men should stop finding women's bodies attractive'.

'I've warned you once. Men still have all the power - this is all about male privilege; men exerting their sexual power over women. Sadiq Kahn's campaign to stop this behaviour on public transport is long overdue, and the male gaze won't happen here either, not on my watch'. 

Fortunately I escaped with a mandatory course on toxic masculinity and male violence toward women.

On leaving work I walked through reception, where the receptionist was talking to one of the senior partners in our firm.

'Don’t be so cheeky!' she giggled.

'Can I give you a ride anywhere?' he said, gesturing to his Ferrari in the directors' carpark. He pressed the fob, and the Ferrari's lights blinked.

'So long as that's all it is', she said, laughing.

She stood, placed her hands on the desk and, smiling up to him, arched her back.

Endnotes

·        Bettina Arndt on the Politics of Cleavage (youtube.com)

(c) Cufwulf

Cufwulf@aol.com