Can we smoke in here?

This is related, I swear. No, really.

The staff room at our school operates much like a high school cafeteria. The open hostility simmering just beneath the surface is gone, but the rude jokes, juvenile behaviour, and raucous laughter remain. We spend our day with children: we let loose a little in the staff room. Anuses get mentioned almost every break, my co-workers keep a daily tally of the number of times I say ‘vagina’, and I’ve lost track of the number of times somebody’s been told to fuck off through a mouthful of food.

This is all fine.

There is one gentleman I work with who objects to this. He is not a prude: he does not object to all of the rude jokes. No, he objects only to mine. And it is not only the jokes: I need only mention something that has to do exclusively with women and out come his barbs. I was telling one of the women today about Vaginal Tightening Cream, some disgusting little product I’ve just found on the intarwebs, and was busy proclaiming my disdain when he loudly bulldozed through our conversation. “Very nice, -’b,” he shouted. “Very nice.”

“I wasn’t really talking to you,” I said, turning away from my friend.

“Yeah, but I can HEAR you,” he snarled.

The woman I was talking to turned to me and said, “I don’t think he likes it when you talk like that,” she said.

I’m SORRY?

“He’s a grown up,” I said. “If he’s old enough to see a vagina, he’s old enough to talk about one.”

Look: I am not shy. I will talk about periods – they are, after all, a huge part of 50% of the population’s life, and when we are in pain because of them, it is effing. real. I will give candid sexual health advice, or ask for it, at the staff table. I will talk about my vagina and my breasts as much as, or more than, you talk about your penis. I can objectify with the best of them, and my dirty jokes will make you blush.

Why, when we are talking about subject matter that has to do with women, must we hush it up, pretend it doesn’t exist, go off somewhere private and out of the public sphere to do it? Why are men willing to put their penis in a vagina (and boast about it!) but not to admit their existence later? And why, why, WHY, does it reflect badly on my character when I am NOT shy about sex, sexual health, women’s rights, or my ability to compete with the boys’ club?

Here’s how this relates to the article above. 83% of the women in Egypt have been harassed. 2.4% of them reported it. Why? Because we are ashamed! We are made to feel ashamedin the public sphere of our bodies and their functions, of our sexual behaviour, of our comfort with ourselves. We are supposed to hide all that away until there are no men around to hear it. We are to be appropriate. And for as long as this is true, as long as my vagina and my breasts and my sex don’t exist as soon as I walk into a public space, then my safety, my health, my concerns, and my exclusively female voice will also not exist in those same public spaces.

And that is Not. Ok.