Running is hard. If you’re not a seasoned Strava-ite, it takes much mental fortitude. Barrelling around a park and wondering when it will end is not an optimal pastime for the average person, but you do it because it makes you feel better, it makes you fitter, it makes you happier. Yet for many women, the harder part of a run lies not in the physical toll, but the inevitable and unavoidable catcalls along the way. I have never, ever been on a run without this happening.
A run, to me, means accidentally meeting the gaze of the man staring at you, mouth slightly agape, and preemptively wincing at the degrading thing he’s about to shout that will make you feel so, so small. It’s the lurid comments, the puckered lips shooting wet kisses at you from the windows of vans. It’s feeling cheap, demeaned, humiliated.
