At 44, I'm Starting To Become Invisible To Men. Here's What I Didn't Expect To Feel.
I am 44 years old and I might be the only woman I know who doesn’t mind getting older. In fact, I relish it.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not fond of everything that comes with it. My hips hurt. My eyesight is getting worse. I’m forced to decide between a glass of wine or a sleepless night. Gray hair, not-so-fine lines and deep wrinkles are certainly humbling. Oh, and my moisturizers are now more expensive than they’ve ever been.
None of this is fun. But aging has given me something that I didn’t even know I needed: delicious invisibility and freedom from unwanted male attention.
I know that many will take issue with my stance. Society is not kind to women who age, and no one knows that better than women themselves. No one enjoys being ignored when they need something, but the world is not kind to girls or women at any stage, and what I’m talking about is something far more sinister than the store clerk who looks right past me.
I remember the first time a man I didn’t know put his hands on me. It happened in broad daylight at a popular spot in Brooklyn, New York, where locals go to enjoy the view of the Hudson River and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge that connects my borough to Staten Island. I was 15 years old and enjoying summer break. I spent my days biking around the city and often stopped at this spot, which I’d loved since my parents took me there as a small child.
I hopped off my bike and was admiring the whitecaps that rushed under the bridge when I felt his hand up my shorts. Then, just as quickly, he sped away on his bicycle while his friend cheered him on. The assault was fast, calculated and breathtakingly scary. I wonder now how many other unsuspecting women and children he groped before — and after — me.
I never saw the face of that man who made me afraid to go to the promenade by myself from that point forward. Nearly 30 years later, I’ve never forgotten the assault. For too many years I blamed myself for what happened: Maybe if I’d stayed on my bike ... Maybe if I hadn’t worn such short shorts ... Maybe if I hadn’t been so taken by that view ...
That man was not the first or last to challenge my relationship with public spaces. The following year, another guy I didn’t know cornered me against a gate and wrapped his leg around my waist before animatedly thrusting his hips into me until I shoved him away with all the force my teenage body could muster. His friends laughed as I hurried off in the opposite direction, glancing over my shoulder until they were out of sight.
A few years before either of those encounters, I was walking to a family member’s house a few blocks from my own home when a man who appeared to be my father’s age pulled up next to me in a van and said, “Hey, little girl, I have a bag of candy for you.” Though this sounds like something out of an after-school special — almost too cliche to be real — the danger I felt in that moment was visceral, and I ran away from him as quickly as my feet would carry me.
I know I’m not the only one who has experienced something like this. Many girls and women are often suddenly confronted by a car horn, a whistle or obscenities being leveled at us by men and boys. It seems to get them off, and I would wager that some of them fully intend to instill a bit of fear in their targets.
A few years ago I was on a walk in a rural town when a man approached me on foot, got uncomfortably close and whispered, “Nice tits,” before rubbing himself and walking away. This happened mere feet from a preschool. It was the first time I called the police during an otherwise peaceful walk in broad daylight. I was on high alert the entire way home. I had no way to prove what had just happened, and I’m not sure the police ever came.
Women and girls are targets for unwanted male attention wherever they find themselves. Everything I’m describing has taken place in cities, suburbs and rural towns, and it’s often much worse. It happens in nightclubs. It happens in grocery stores. It’s happening on busy streets in the middle of the day. Women are told to smile. They’re badgered for their numbers. They’re called names if they don’t respond or dare to call out the behavior. It is relentless. It is daunting. And it’s exhausting.
For many of us, this kind of attention begins in our own homes, long before we’re able to make sense of our experiences. I, like many girls, was conditioned by my family to believe that my body was up for criticism, inspection and commentary. When aunts and uncles comment on the length of your legs, or when your parents talk openly about how you’re “filling out” (or not filling out), or when your grandparents admonish you for not “sitting like a lady” before you have any idea what they mean, you come to accept this hyper fixation on your body as normal.
To make matters worse, I was told that unwanted male attention was always the fault of the girl or woman receiving it — no matter what. If I was courageous enough to report these confusing, infuriating and terrifying encounters with strange men and boys to my parents, they would summarily dismiss them as my fault.
Our culture does the exact same thing. Just look at Donald Trump (the former president of the United States!) and the way he has treated women — and how our society has normalized his repugnant behavior. It’s 2024 and we’re still considered playthings for men. And if we don’t like it, we’re labeled rude or frigid, and told we can’t take a joke or don’t know our place.
So, I could not be more thrilled to finally be at an age where I’m mostly unseen by men. With each passing year, I find myself navigating unwanted male attention less and less, which means I can now do something as simple as go for a walk without preemptively bracing myself for rude and hypersexualized comments or uninvited physical contact.
It shouldn’t have to be this way. We shouldn’t have to wait half of our lives to feel safe in our own skin. We shouldn’t have to secure the invisibility that aging offers us to exist in the world without fear of who will approach us and what they’ll say or do. Just think of how much mental and emotional energy we waste — and what we could be capable of if we could spend all of that time and energy creating or connecting with others. What’s more, if women were respected — and desired for more than just their bodies — we might not be rendered invisible as we age (which obviously comes with disadvantages too), and I wouldn’t have to be so overjoyed about finally living undetected.
Unfortunately, it’s too late for me — I’ve already aged out — but it may not be too late for the women and girls coming up after me.
As an author, I believe that starting conversations about these kinds of experiences can be a powerful part of the solution. I write children’s books about unpalatable topics like bullying, family dysfunction and gender-based harassment involving minors because I do not want these traumas to continue to thrive in silence. If we can teach children how to resist objectification — and teach boys not to objectify in the first place — we can change the dominant narrative about women in our culture. For me, it all begins with a simple idea: No one is entitled to opinions about — or access to — other peoples’ bodies without their consent. Period. And I will not stop talking with children about these difficult topics until society has turned a corner.
I’m not holding my breath. It won’t be easy. It will take courage, dedication, uncomfortable discussions, and a lot of support and understanding. But it’s worth fighting for. Besides, now that I’m invisible, I’ve got all of that extra time and energy on my hands, so I hope I can help make the world a little more palatable for the girls who will soon inherit it.
Christina Wyman is a USA Today bestselling author and teacher living in Michigan. “Slouch,” her highly anticipated middle-grade novel, is about a tall girl navigating friends, family, self-esteem, boundaries and the terrifying realization that her body no longer seems to belong to her. It is available wherever books are sold, including local independent bookstores, starting in October 2024. Her debut novel, “Jawbreaker,” a middle-grade book that follows a seventh grader with a craniofacial anomaly, was named one of Publishers Weekly’s best books of 2023.
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