Objectified

I was on the bus home today, with a small segment of the usual crowd. Myself, three other ND/Palma kids including this one freshman girl and her twin brother. If you've ever been on an MST bus, then you know that there is a "communal" section in the front and back of the bus and the middle is filled with individual sets of seats, two on a side. Each of us were spaced out by at least one seat set.

Eventually we pull up to a stop in Toro where four public school boys (probably sophomores or juniors) get on. I first I don't think anything of it, just some guys enjoying their day off being silly; but within a few minutes the entire bus reeks of pot, and if you know my feelings about drugs (another note for another time) you'd know that this pisses me off already. I mean honestly, what the hell are they thinking getting high and then getting on a public bus?! There are kids that ride MST! Not to mention it's just plain stupid! I wish I could make another powerful and coherent sentence on what a selfish and unintelligent decision that is! I mean, if they want to expose themselves and there probably already limited number of brain cells to that shit then that is there decision, and I can't say that it's fine or that I respect it but they are entitled to it.

So aside from the stench and there loud chatter (which was luckily incoherent under the sounds of Angels and Airwaves coming through my headphones) nothing else seems to be wrong. Just some idiot teenage boys doing, what all but a few of them seem to do best, being absolute morons. But then I notice the freshman girl looks up at them with a hurt glare. I mean if looks could kill, we would have had four dead bodies on our hands; I have never seen anyone's face hold such intensity before, I felt as if I could read her like a book.

Now I don't particularly like this freshman girl. I mean she is perfectly nice and everything, but her "type" generally piss me off. You know, the fake blond girls with the heavy eyeliner and the skirts that might as well not even be there, the kind that all the guys drool over, the kind that I can't tell if I hate them because they are stupid or because I want to be one of them. In some circles, they're the "popular" girls, I can't really be an authority figure on what is or isn't popular, but you know the girls to who I am referring.

So this girl looks angry, but it isn't just anger, it's pain underneath. I can't quite figure out what's wrong. I figured maybe she's just wishing they would shut up so she could finish the homework she's working on, or maybe she's straight edge too, probably no big deal. I pause my iPod for a second, and tune in to the boys conversation, or what I can hear anyway. Nothing seemed inappropriate, so I chalk it up to a misunderstanding...And yet, something about the look on her face won't let me forget it.

A while later, and two stops before me, the girl and her brother get off. The idiot boys decide to move from the front of the bus to the back (the section right behind me). Something still seems off, so I press pause again and see what happens.

The boys are apparently still watching the twins, and in about a minute of argument, figure out that they're twins ("But they can't be twins 'cuz that one's a boy"...W-O-W...nice one losers). And after I try not to explode from laughter about that one, I hear something that makes me sick to my stomach. "Damn his sister sure was hot." "What a nice little slice." "What a slut." "I bet she's easy." And it went on and on getting worse and worse and more and more vulgar, and I swear to God, I could've leapt over the seat and killed those assholes with my bare hands. I thought about it, pictured it, who to take first, how to get over my seat the fastest, and how to escape when the bus driver figured it out. I literally had to hold myself down because I was shaking with anger. It took every fiber of my being not to do something, anything; scream, swear, fight, I didn't really care anymore I just couldn't sit passively and let them talk about her like, like, like that!

Ultimately I got off the bus, I did nothing, I let them go. I realized that I am a defenseless loser; that even had I said anything I just would tripped, or dropped something, and completely ruined the sting of my words. Wouldn't it? Would having said something, done something, would it have changed anything?

All I can say is I am appalled. I don't care what a girl does, or how she dresses, or anything else, NO woman deserves to be talked to/about like that. I can't believe that those boys have been raised in a way that they think that is acceptable behavior because it is ABSOLUTELY NOT O.K. I was even more upset because I know guys like that, I have liked guys like that. What they hell was I thinking? Have I been so fucked up in the head by the men in my life that I think THAT is desirable? Because it is absofuckinglutely NOT. Never again will I ever make that mistake. And never again will I ever write off a girl because of her actions or appearance. I don't care who you are, male or female, everyone deserves equality and every woman deserves respect.

...Any thoughts?...