A smile is all it takes

Twenty-three years is how long it took me to realize they all wear the same smile.

I was staring out the car window as we stopped at a traffic light. We were next to a truck, with its window rolled down, and a man was at the steering wheel. I was trying my best not to look at him, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him smirking down at me. It went on for an uncomfortable length of time that I was forced to turn my head the other way. I was 10, probably—I only knew that the way he looked at me did not make me feel good.

I was walking in Diliman just after my class, under the scorching heat of midday. I passed by a house under construction, and one of the men working on it from the upper floor told me to come give him a kiss. No one else was on the street. I walked faster. I was 16, and in a shirt and jogging pants, just in case you think it matters.

I read an online group chat consisting of college males, one of whom I trusted, who pitifully wait around for girls to upload photos on social media so they could feast upon those and make jokes about raping them. To be fair, they also talked about video games, and occasionally, school requirements. I was 17, and it broke my heart.

I watched a video of a presidential aspirant who would turn out to be this country’s leader, saying that as the mayor, he should have been the first to rape an actual gang rape and murder victim. If you listen closely, a man’s laugh resounds the loudest. I was 19. Until now, I cannot fathom what was so laughable about what he said.

I was walking home at around eight in the evening, when across the street, a man who saw me made kissing sounds—or more appropriately, sounds a person makes when beckoning a dog. Only there was no dog on the street, just me closely watching his face to see if he would dare do it again while I was looking at him. I was 20.

I drive now, and from inside my not-so-heavily-tinted car I still get the same smirks and lingering looks. I am 23. I also realized I have gone full circle, because another man at the steering wheel, this time of a sedan, along with his friends at the backseat, had the gall to slow down, roll their windows down, and just stare at me and my friends at the sidewalk as we were waiting for a ride home. They could barely contain their laughter.

Over the years, I have mustered the courage to stare back, raise my middle finger, ask them what their problem is—because I am sure as hell the problem is not with me. Sometimes I watch the smiles disappear from their faces. Other times, they continue to smile that same smile, as 22 years will likely etch an expression you often see in your memory. It is a shallow, condescending smile—one that has tired, frustrated, and angered me, because for two decades it is clear that nothing has changed. If anything, I only continue to discover how much more disgusting it can get. What other things they can laugh about. The depths they can sink into to pull some semblance of humor out of abuse and harassment. How they will cry foul when they are called out.

The fact that it does not matter where, or when it happens—in the streets, in their phones, in front of an audience, in the polished halls of the Senate or Malacañang. It does not matter. The circle will continue for me and for many others, the same way it has been traced over so many times before. It is that circle that frightens me out of sharing this piece to others, because a voice in my head says that maybe my experiences still do not warrant me speaking out against them, even as I know that I should not even be enduring a single smile or another jeer.

I am sure the circle will not end within my lifetime, but I hope women of future generations would have no need to muster the same courage to challenge those smiles. It is admirable, yes, but it is the men who are brought up to have the nerve and stupidity, despite being faced with actual consequences, to catcall, grope, and joke in campaign speeches about violating women. It is the men who should have to be scared—of their actions, of having to take responsibility for them. Until then, we stare back. Smiles like those do not deserve to be returned.

“Bernice,” 23, is a law student.