Since coming to college I have been a pretty self confident person in the way I feel about myself. I express that confidence and self love in my clothes, makeup, jewelry, etc. At first I never even thought twice about other people’s reactions or thoughts towards me because I was happy with myself, and that was all that mattered. That should have been all that mattered. However, sadly the crushing weight of the world fell down upon me like it does with everyone. And finally one thing made me feel self conscious and now I will never be able to forget that. That one thing is catcalling and people disrespecting woman.
Coming to a new city all by myself, I endured catcalling on a daily basis. Some were just sly annoying comments while others were more aggressive, almost even scary. After a month of catcalling on almost a daily basis, I started to doubt my own self worth and beauty. I started to think that maybe the cloths and look that I like isn’t socially acceptable. Maybe I should change myself to fit in more with society and throw away all these things that I love. That feeling was suffocating and made me start to become a little more depressed about going outside.
The scary thing is that I’m not the only girl or woman to feel this way. So many women go through the exact same thing. I know girls at my school that go through this as well. Even my roommate does. After talking with them I realized that is negative attention makes us all think and feel the same thing. We all feel more self conscious, more scared, and we love ourself a little bit less.
It took me almost two months after my depression stage to start to love myself again, like I did in the beginning. I just finally decided I had enough. That I love my style and my feel, that if society and catcallers have a problem with it, then they can just keep it to themselves because their protest is now falling on deaf ears.
I know there are going to be other girls who go through the same thing I did and still am. Or there are woman going through it right now. My words of advice to you are, love yourself. Love yourself and ignore all the catcalling and rudeness. Love yourself and never doubt yourself in what you love. No matter what above all, this is is your life. Live it so that you have no regrets.