You stood in line behind me in line tonight, accompanied by a young woman (she seemed like your girlfriend, but maybe she was your friend or sister). Doesn’t really matter. I heard these words come out of your mouth, directed at her:

“You can order a bowl or a salad, a burrito is too big”.



“You can choose sour cream or cheese, you don’t need that much dairy”.

You don’t deserve an ounce of my or anyone else’s time or energy, but I’m going to take a moment to give you some choice words because that woman standing next to you deserves to have someone call you out on your disgusting behavior.

Don’t you ever think for one moment that it is acceptable to police a female’s choices as if you own her. Do not, not for one second, think that you are in any position to be directing a woman on what to eat, wear, think, say, or do. You are not in charge of anyone. You have no ownership over anyone’s body but your own. The words that you just uttered are so harmful, so offensive, that they have demonstrated a lot about your character in the three minutes we stood together in line this evening. You are a man who feels entitled to act in a misogynistic, disgusting way because for some reason, you think you are better than the woman standing next to you and more capable of making choices about her own body than she is. You are not. You are not special. You are not anything. I sincerely hope that until you do some serious work on your self and your destructive masculinity, no woman graces you with her presence again. You do not deserve her company.

And do the woman standing next to you, who fell silent at this man’s astounding display of disgusting behavior, I feel for you. I do not know your story or your relationship with this man. I do not know you or what you felt at that moment, but whoever you are, you are whole. You are whole without that man or any others in this world who may decide that they have a say in what you do with your body. I know how difficult it can be to break out of the box that this world tries to shove female bodies into, and I know that this experience was probably only one of many in your life as female that has tried to squash you. You do not need to be changed. You do not need to be anything, for anyone, ever. You are whole.

I hope you ordered six burritos and threw them all at this asshole’s face. But if you didn’t, if you were afraid to go against him, if you didn’t want to start an argument, if this sort of interaction is so normal for you that it feels okay, you are not wrong. You are not bad. You are still a whole woman, and you are part of an army of women who have unfortunately had similar experiences, and deserve none of the patronizing, patriarchal bullshit that I overheard tonight.

Ladies, eat and do and say and think whatever the hell you want, and let no one tell you otherwise. And men, do not ever let yourself or your friends think for an instant that you are important enough to make choices for somebody else. You are not.