Health - Injuries female runner harassment. I didn't offer safety tips. Instead, I called for us to take the blame off of women who were harassed and hoist it on to the harassers.
To prove the point, I wrote about what happened to me when I wore a pair of purple below-the-knee Nike capris, which I'd bought for $10 at the Nike outlet in Atlantic City.
Reaction was swift and fierce. Most was in support of me speaking out against something that can make running uncomfortable for a lot of women. I got a lot of emailed high-fives and tweets.
But those who hated the column came at me with vitriol. Almost all of those emails, many sent from anonymous accounts, focused on one thing: my purple running pants.
&Can Birth Control Affect Running Performance
&female runner harassment
"You got exactly what you deserved, you whore."
Health & Injuries @mrsloctastic How to Talk to Our Daughters About Exercise.
quot;You got exactly what you deserved, you whore.", #whorepants have been invited to the Phillies home opener tailgate (I forget why I didn't bring them—probably because I'd just run a marathon and still had brain fog). When Shia Labeouf wore a pair of All About 75 Hard, his photo was sent to me a dozen times with the #whorepants hashtag. I sometimes share pictures of what I wear to work out, so my online friends have also declared that I have #whoreflannel (my grandfather's oversized flannel jacket that I wear over my running clothes to the gym) and #whoresocks (red CEP compression socks). They're also pushing for a chapter in my upcoming book to be called #whorechapter (if only chapters weren't going to be named after races I've run).
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There are so many things I've been told I could not or should not do because I'm a woman, like buy a house by myself, drive halfway across the country by myself, zip around Italy by myself, or even train for a marathon by myself. I can't answer all of those criticisms succinctly, but I can take this one thing, flip it around, stand by the hashtag, and own it.
Yesterday I popped off a five-mile run before lunch, wearing an old race shirt and a pair of knee-length charcoal gray Athleta tights. As I hit mile two, a guy in a red truck driving in the opposite direction slowed down, rolled down his window, and yelled, "I love how your titties bounce when you run."
Bold move when you have a "How's My Driving" sticker on the back of your car. So I turned around and followed him, hoping to catch the 1-800 number on the sticker. He saw me, blew through a yellow light, then sped away.
He and those who call me nasty names under the shield of anonymous emails, twitter handles and screen names are cowards. So I will continue to try to photograph those license plates and 1-800 numbers, give the one-fingered salute to men who make comments about my rear, and reply to jerks—men and women—who say women are at fault when they're harassed.
I will continue to wear my #whorepants—proudly.
