I live in Eastern Europe/Western Asia – not really sure how to define it. All I know is that it is a surreal part of the world that I didn’t learn anything about growing up, and I certainly never fathomed ending up here when I became aware of it. But as rich foreigners increasingly infiltrate Western countries, single, childless women – especially those without financially-supportive family – are increasingly forced to look elsewhere in order to survive. I meet more and more women like me every year, and I think it’s only going to get worse. Indeed, I work online 7 days a week, and I still can’t afford to live in my home country of Canada, so off to other places I must go. Verging on digressing, I know, but everything I discuss here today is all about misogyny, whether it is being a disenfranchised, lone woman, or an ‘owned’ heterosexual woman exchanging sex and service for orbited privilege. Only men win in this world.

So yesterday, I ventured out into this weird little city that I’ve been hunkered down in for over a year to pick up some vegetables, and on my way back, I was met with a sad and sort of shocking scenario. Normally, I don’t pay much attention to what people are wearing. It’s not that I don’t appreciate style, it’s that I don’t really care. One of the few things I like about where I live is that it is one of the most unfashionable countries I’ve ever been to. I’ll amend that a bit – the women think they are fashionable, but they really aren’t, and I get a lot of disgusted, head-to-toe-to-head looks from the local women when they pass me on the street – me and my no-nonsense trousers and modest accessories. Funnily, no matter where I live, I never do ‘woman-face’ correctly.

But yesterday, here is what happened. So I’m trudging home with my bags of onions, garlic, mushrooms, zucchini and tomatoes in 35 degree heat (it hits 45 in August, ugh), and I vaguely registered an old man passing me with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. I pay little attention to males in public other than to know exactly where they are in my personal space orbit, and whether they pose more of a threat than any and all males do at any given moment. A few seconds later, several paces behind him stumbled an old woman with a very vacant look on her face. Women, I pay attention to as fellow humans. It took me a moment to process what I was seeing. She was wearing colourless rags, and I couldn’t really figure out the individual pieces of the ensemble, but I realized, to my great surprise, that she was mostly naked on top, one withered breast exposed to the world. I stopped in my tracks to take in the scene and to see what other locals around us would do. A few people noticed and did nothing – perhaps this kind of thing is normal around here? Haven’t seen it before – naked homeless dudes in other countries, yes. Women, not so much. I turned and saw that the man had already stopped a woman on the sidewalk. He must have been asking for money. His female companion caught up to him.

What struck me is that no one seemed concerned that the woman was exposed, including the woman’s owner. And this is an extremely religious country with lots of rules about women’s evil body parts, what should be covered and when the covering should occur. But note here that I’m not talking about being offended by naked breasts or that women’s bodies are problems or something. What I’m saying is that women are vulnerable in this world because of their bodies and because of the fact that males have designed every corner of this earth to punish women for having female bodies. A naked female body is an invitation for one kind of assault or another, either to punish her or to use her or both. Heck, you can be very modestly dressed and still be the target of male assault, but complying with feminine clothing as well as public nudity are generally seen as permission and an invitation for male attention. Women don’t understand this, generally – the relationship between compliance and male violence and that actions have real implications and don’t exist in a vacuum. To assume that you can do what you do for ‘other’ or ‘personal’ reasons doesn’t divorce you from male attention. They don’t care what your intentions are.

Anyhow, I watched the scene for a few moments and felt reasonably sure that nothing immediately bad was going to happen. This was likely a homeless couple, possibly suffering from age-related cognitive problems. I have to assume that, being such a religious country, the church provides some kind of assistance to the needy. The government situation is a bit of a mess. When I run into stuff like this, I am of very mixed minds. I don’t help men – ever – and I am very picky, based on past bad experiences, about the females I assist. I know there are those who would disagree with me about selectivity, and that is fine. I am just very economical about where I spend my very limited gynergy.

Needless to say, this was a sad scene that left a very bad aftertaste. Owned heterosexual women, generally have great potential for perks in life that single women and lesbians never have, but I also think that the depths to which hetero women can sink are far, far greater. Heterosexuality, for women, is like a high-reward, but very high-risk investment opportunity. Every day, I more firmly believe that female separatism is the only way to female dignity and freedom.