Women’s bodies and clothes aren’t something to joke about, no matter the scenario

SOMETIMES a throwaway line can hurt more than an intended insult, writes PHILLIPPA BUTT

Sometimes a throwaway line can hurt more than an intended insult

IT was said under his breath to a mate at a party. A joke, never meant to be shared.

But it was overheard by another friend. And there’d been drinks. Plenty of them. Enough to stop the friend thinking about her feelings and instead insist he share with the group.

To give him his due, he tried his best to keep silent. The two mates were quiet. “Oh it was nothing,” they said. But she was insistent. They were all insistent. What was the joke that had them cracking up?

And then it was said. At first the group didn’t hear properly. No one really laughed. And so it was corrected and repeated.

The laughter was nervous. The one at the centre of the joke went bright red.

She’d already been feeling a little self-conscious at the party – the dress she’d worn was better for a night at a club, which to give her her due was where the party had been intended to end up.

But it hadn’t. Instead she was the most overdressed, or underdressed, in the room.

And an outfit that normally gave her plenty of confidence suddenly made her want a jumper, a coat, anything to cover up the fact she had boobs.

And she couldn’t do anything about it. She had to sit there, and laugh, and pretend it was all fine, because cool girls don’t make a scene. Cool girls can take a joke. Cool girls don’t ruin a party when a tease comes their way. Even when they’ve been made to feel like the tease themselves.

As the night went on the friend who’d made the comment public apologised. “It’s fine,” she said, brushing it off. “It’s not a big deal”.

And it wasn’t until the next day, when she still didn’t want to show her face in public, that she realised maybe it wasn’t okay. Maybe it wasn’t fine.

Maybe that comment, shared like a joke in a men’s locker room, wasn’t actually appropriate in any scenario, let alone at a party in front of her.

She was lucky, she’d never really experienced anything like it before. Normally the negative comments about her body came from herself – her friends were supportive and in general people didn’t make comments like that out loud.

And maybe he knew that it wasn’t okay. Maybe that’s why it was said under his breath to a mate rather than to the whole room in the first place.

And so she turned to another friend, who’d also been at the party. Shared her feelings. Questioned whether she should really feel upset. She’d been known to blow things out of proportion before. Maybe she was just doing it again now.

“It was never meant to hurt you” was the answer. “They all think you’re great. And that you looked great.”

But was that enough? Was the fact it was never intended to hurt or embarrass enough? Did that make it okay?

The friend suggested she talk to him. Tell him how it had made her feel. And in the meantime, the friend spoke to him herself.

Soon, a message appeared in her inbox. “Sorry if I said anything to upset you last night.”

He was a close friend and he had made the effort to apologise. How should she respond?

It’s fine? But it wasn’t really and if she just brushed it off again maybe it’d happen again.

She settled on a “thank you for the message” and an explanation as to why she was upset.

She didn’t know if she’d done the right thing. Should she not have brushed it off? Should she have made a scene there and then? Should she have made it very obvious how upset she was, and how it wasn’t okay to comment on her body? Or should she have never said anything, even after the event? She didn’t know.

And so, with so much confusion going round her head about what was and what wasn’t okay, she decided to write a column. Not to him, but to every man. She didn’t know whether she’d publish it or not.

But she wanted to make sure all men knew it wasn’t okay to make comments or jokes about women’s bodies, regardless of what clothes they chose to wear.

And maybe, if she shared her story, another girl wouldn’t be made to feel embarrassed at a party.

And that was all she could hope for.

Phillippa Butt is the Weekend Features Editor at the NT News