Feminism among other things
Wednesday afternoon a couple hundred students and professors mill around Columbia. The weather is good so those that aren’t heading to class hang out on the steps. In a post-lecture stupor the spring air has made me hyperobservant. Perhaps this is the reason I am the only person staring at a thirty-something well dressed man standing against a well pruned hedge. Not leaning on it, pressed up against it from his belly button to his ankles. Tons of people are walking by and a couple jostle me which probably makes it more obvious that I’m staring at him but he’s focused on something else. Then he pulls away. His penis is exposed. He was peeing! And that’s it. He zips up his pants and walks away from the bush. (Note, stop dragging fingers along campus shrubbery.) More than disgust and wonderment I felt a profound sense of unfairness. This is what feminism should be about, I thought. Why can’t I pee in a bush surrounded by hundreds of people and get away with it? Who cares that I’ll make 72 cents to the dollar if I have to go pee badly.
So when I got home I did what I always do when I’m feeling social unrest. I googled the issue. “Feminism peeing.” Believe or not public toilets EXIST because of feminism and the fact that women can’t just pee anywhere.
