"Every Woman Needs a Man" and Other Stories

It was about midday on a Tuesday. Today, in fact. A completely run-of-the-mill day - I was on the number 40 bus on my way back to the house having ran a few errands and attended an appointment in town, and I was looking forward to inhaling a second bowl of Coco Pops and a big mug of milky tea when I got home. I pressed the stop button, and wondered if I was at the right stop - the 40 is not a route I'd often take - so asked the driver if it was the closest stop to the North Circular Road, because it wasn't busy and my asking wouldn't have been too much of a distraction.



"Nah love, the next stop would be closer, so it would!"


"Fair enough, cheers!" and I stepped back from the driver's cabin.Traffic was calm and the bus was quiet, so the driver had time to go out of his way to point me in the right direction. 


"That's the North Circular there, and the stop is just here past the traffic lights", he told me. The lights turned green, and we slid forward and up to the stop, neat as a pin. "There you go, love! Every woman needs a man, eh?" 


Eh, pardon? My tone changed. Up until now, I'd been my usual cheerful self as I spoke to him, but that comment had irked me into uncharacteristic curtness. 


"Thanks", I muttered monotonously, as I got off. Standing on the footpath, I chastised myself for being rude. After about two seconds of self-criticism, I decided my less-than-jolly response to an unnecessary and patronising comment was perfectly measured. Every woman needs a man? What clap trap! Every person who needs a straightforward question answered needs someone who can answer that question, more like.


The further I walked up the North Circular Road towards home, the more indignant I became. Stupid bastard, I thought. What would he know? I'm fucking independent. Look at me! I'm the embodiment of an independent, twenty-first-century, no-make-up-wearing, pro-choice, LGBT-allied, size-12-on-the-bottom-and-ain't-nothing-wrong-with-that feminist. I need a man to help me go about the daily routine I've been handling by myself for years? Ridiculous. But then I got down off my cross and realised that maybe, just maybe I was overreacting a smidge.


Not because women don't have the right to go about their mundane day-to-day business without having to listen to stupid comments about their being female, and by extension, apparently helpless and/or incompetent. Not because anyone actually deserves to have to listen to such idiocy on the daily - of course we all have the right not to have to our afternoons slightly marred by that. But because the bus driver probably didn't know any better. Because he probably only said it because in his day, that kind of comment wouldn't have even been considered questionable, never mind offensive. Because he was just trying to be helpful, in his own old-fashioned way. And that's the thing, isn't it? How many allowances are we prepared to make for people of an older demographic just not knowing any better? I'm still seriously miffed about the comment, and miffed that it feeds into a deeper structure of bias, misogyny, and harassment. Miffed that I can't just brush it off as that bus driver being just a bit of an old chauvinist, an exception to the rule, a bad egg; but that I have to put it in the context of chauvinism being so ingrained in some of us that we just don't realise comments like that could actually be offensive. All that said, it probably isn't legitimate for me to channel all of my annoyance about said comment towards that bus driver. 


But who should know better? Who can we absolutely not excuse on the assumption that they may not have known any better? Take, for example, the run-in I had with my ENT surgeon back in October. I was referred to him by my GP as I have problems with my sinuses, adenoids, and "excess nasal tissue". (Sexy.) Naturally enough, the ENT specialist - let's call him ENT Eddie - went through a number of routine questions about my general state of health at my first consultation. The usual craic - weight, height, whether I have any other chronic illnesses, blood pressure, and the like. He asked me what medications I was taking.


"Leonore, the oral contraceptive pill", I told him. Duly noted on my file. Any allergies? Penicillen.
"And you're certainly not allergic to men, are you?"


Excuse me? PARDON? I opened and closed my mouth a few times, like a little goldfish. I was, as you can imagine, more than just a little taken aback. Yes, Leonore is a contraceptive, and yes contraceptives stop you from getting pregnant when you have sex, with men, but I could be taking it to regulate my periods or manage my PMT or acne for all he knew. For all you know. But, as per usual, I chickened out of pointing out how disrespectful, unprofessional, sleazy, arrogant, and misogynistic that question was. Partly because I was so taken aback, and primarily because ENT Eddie was wielding a tiny camera on a big long stick he was about to stick up my nose. 


"I'm only teasing", he chuckled. I chuckled weakly, too. Why are you chuckling, you moron? I scolded myself. You absolute prat!


Now, here's an example of someone who absolutely should know better. Practising medical professionals in Ireland are held to a set of strict ethical and professional standards, something I found out later that day as I scoured the internet, trying to figure out how to report ENT Eddie. (I didn't report him. I thought it might make my future appointments with him "awkward" - ENT Eddie is the only ENT surgeon in the area.) I can only assume that it's spelled out exactly to them what makes for appropriate in-consultation chit-chat, and what doesn't. Here's a man so cock-sure of himself, so arrogant and so disrespectful, that these sorts of professional ethics don't really mean a whole lot to him. 


Then there's the other bus driver who once told me I look about twelve years old (I was twenty at the time) and that I would one day "make some man very happy". What about him? What about the man who once pointed at me on the way out of a nightclub and said "wouldn't ride her"? Oh, or the guy who decided once when I was out having fun with some friends that I was "ugly, but he'd still ride me"? Let us not forget the man in Germany who pointed at me as I walked down the street on a hot summer's day in a pair of shorts and said "süße Beine" (nice legs), either. (In fairness, hats off here to Berlin's wino community for their sense of irony - my legs are in no way nice, by any standard.) Or the guy who told me I had a nice body but a fat face? What about them? Are they excused? Absolved from all wrongdoing, because horrible and misogynistic comments like that are apparently so rampant they have no counter-example of non-asshole behaviour to work with? 


I'm not convinced they should be. So maybe I should have shared my feelings with that bus driver about his silly comment after all, old fogey or not. 

My Lucky Trousers

I lack poise, grace and allure. I'm not the kind of person who turns heads in the street, with possible exception for when I'm tussling with a suitcase and a load of bags and fighting my way across College Green on a Friday morning, and only then because I'm getting in everyone's way and making a bit of a nuisance of myself. I'm a clumsy and nondescript person, and the best I hope for is that this will occasionally manifest itself in a sort of awkward charm. I assume that most of the time I go unnoticed in a crowd unless I've tripped over my own feet and fallen down or dropped something or whatever which is fine because I also assume being very striking and Vogue model-esque would be both time consuming and burdensome. Last Wednesday though, as I battled my way towards college hoping the five-minute walk would today go minor incident-free, someone actually noticed me when I wasn't embroiled in some sort of awkward scene. Like, I was just standing there. Waiting for the lights to change. Unprecedented. 

This well-dressed man standing beside me at the crossing turns to me and says, "I love your trousers, they are very chic" and I was all like, "oh, why thank you! That's so nice of you!" I was genuinely flattered. I do actually really like the trousers I was wearing that day, they're my third favourite pair. They've got a kind of ombré effect going on, brown turning into blue down the calf, and they cinch in at the waist and widen at the hips. They were also only a tenner and have not yet fallen apart. 

He continued, "can you tell me how to get to Ballsbridge?"

"Yes, of course! Take the 4 or the 7 bus from that stop over there, it takes about ten minutes."

"Are you studying in Trinity?"

"Yes, I am indeed! Law and German!"

"Ah! Beauty and brains!" (I thought I'd reached my maximum capacity of flatteredness when he complimented my trousers but now I was positively beaming) 

"Oh stop, you're far too kind!" 

By now, we'd crossed the street and were waiting for the second set of lights to change. I was running quite late for my lecture so this charming stranger's timing was a little inconvenient and also I was kind of sweaty and some of my hair was stuck to my face so I had to question his genuineness but was thoroughly enjoying this unexpected onslaught of compliments so I resisted the urge to run into traffic and away from him. 

"Where are you from?", he asked.

"I'm from Louth, it's about an hour north of Dublin." (It's not that I'm patronising, he was foreign and obviously here on business)

"You're kidding! You're Irish? Irish people are never usually so stylish or beautiful!"

"Oh hahaha!" (My actual reaction, very high pitched and embarrassing)

"Listen, take care of yourself, won't you? You're all you have. Have a good day!"

And so the kind stranger ran off to catch the 4 or the 7 bus to Ballsbridge, as per my instruction. I made my way to my lecture, feeling extremely taken aback but also very pleased with myself. The kind stranger is right, I thought to myself. I am beautiful! I am all I have, and need, in this dog eat dog world! I will look after myself! I'm every woman, it's all in me! Anything you want done baby, I'll do it naturally! Maybe I'll wear these trousers more often!

The next time I wore these trousers, which was yesterday, a woman at the bus stop told me she thought they were "just gawwjusss!" (I live in Inchicore) and asked where they were from. I was just AMAZED. Who knew a pair of ten euro H&M trousers could inspire such great vibes, and good feeling? My mood was buoyed by her kind words for the rest of the day and I feel all happy and fuzzy just now as I type about it.

I always notice things I like about people as I'm pottering about Dublin, but I so rarely tell them unless I actually know them. I always thought they'd find it creepy or think I was distracting them as my accomplice went through their pockets or handbag. In light of my two recent experiences with compliments from total strangers (after which I'm still in possession of my both wallet and phone) however, I've decided to start complimenting others more often. I mean, my day was absolutely made by what those two people said to me about what I now consider my lucky trousers, and if I could make someone else feel even half as touched and made up as I did I think that'd be really nice. I don't mean to get all soppy, but lately especially I've really learned that almost everyone you meet is going through something or other, big or small. A nicely thought-out and genuine compliment could go a long way. 

That said, me being plagued with social awkwardness and discomfort has thwarted my half-hearted attempts to live up to my new resolution thus far. Yesterday evening, there was a couple sitting at the table next to us in the café I was in with a beautiful newborn baby. She really was a dote, sleeping peacefully on her dad's shoulder with little tufts of dark hair on her tiny head. When I was getting my coat and bag together on my way out, I caught the dad's eye and smiled and my brain was egging me on to ask "how old is she?" and tell them how sweet she was. Alas, the "complimenting strangers is possibly a bit creepy never mind complimenting strangers' babies" worry started to creep in so I left without saying anything. I'll try again another time, honestly. Compliments are excellent. And I'm kind of convinced my trousers actually hold magical lucky powers.