http://ohcollege.tumblr.com/post/91945364/exchange-that-sums-up-every-exchange-just-like-it

I've been trying for a while to write something long-form about the female experience of New York City. I think this is about a lot more than just guys who holler at you on the street, although certainly a nearly-universal, nearly-everyday form of sexual harassment could definitely frame the experience as a whole. New Yorkers (urban-dwellers in general, but New Yorkers especially) aren't supposed to be afraid of anything, but so much of being a woman in this city is defined by things we either fear or are supposed to fear (or both). For me, it's been hard to figure out where I am supposed to draw the line: does someone loudly, publicly saying something about my body or what they want to do with it constitute the kind of inevitable public confrontation New Yorkers learn to expect and ignore? I am I supposed to expect and ignore it?
We are reminded not to make eye contact, not to talk to strange men, to turn our heads away or bury them in newspapers or cell phones when people say things that make our skin crawl. We are shamed for wearing and doing things that "invite" cat-callers, subway gropers, and rapists (and sometimes blamed for not doing enough to wield them off). My roommate is harassed outside of church on Sundays; a 20-something once offered to give me his penis (I'm paraphrasing here) when I was walking with my boyfriend through a public park. Clearly there is a difference between the New Yorker's experience and the New York woman's experience (I don't mean to decentralize the female voice here, I just don't think referring to the former as the "New York man's" experience has the same connotation).

Please share your thoughts so I can write something longer and smarter.