Beautiful Being an Empowered Young Woman (Hebrew)

<p>I was a seventh-grade teacher while I was living in New York City and many of my students were attractive young women who looked a lot more like college students than middle-school kids. Were they getting called out and leered at too?</p><p>Lara was in eighth grade. She was very tall and thin and looked like a supermodel. She knew it and liked to dress a little too skimpily for my taste. But I love her anyway. We were very close and I knew if I asked her a question she’d answer me honestly.</p><p>“Lara can I ask you something?”</p><p>“Sure Katzie what’s up?”</p><p>“When you’re walking around on the street do random guys call you out and tell you things they want to do to you?”</p><p>“OH MY GOD!!! All the time!” I heard a real sense of relief in her voice.</p><p>“How does it make you feel?”</p><p>“Horrible. Like a piece of meat.”</p><p>We talked about the problem for a long time. At the end of the conversation I had really mixed feelings. On one hand I felt better that I was not the only person who suffered this kind of treatment. On the other hand I felt a lot worse because not only did I have to deal with this but now I realized that my students—middle-school girls—were being catcalled on the street by men who were probably at least twice their age. This I decided was NOT COOL. I had to do something about it.</p><p> </p>