Editor’s Note: The following column contains language that may be offensive to some readers.

This is a letter to the boys who helped me parallel park only to say, “Now we flip a coin to see what we get.” Who said, “Heads we get head, tails we get tail.”

I envision a world where I can walk past fraternities without someone screaming sexual obscenities repeatedly in a high pitch as one would a pig. Where women aren’t berated for ignoring the advances of drunken strangers. Where does your entitlement come from, that you cannot see that our silence is a kindness?

Perhaps it is unthinkable that we resist you. I’m sorry, did I cast a chink in your manhood? It is so small, I did not see it there.

Are you so bowled over by your own wit that this failure of empathy seems warranted?

This is a letter to boys insisting we smile when years of street harassment teach us to empty our faces, avoid eye contact and walk quickly. Is it such an affront to be anything other than pretty and receptive? Did you know women walk down streets for reasons other than aesthetic appreciation? What invitation would you read if we smiled?

The calls move quickly from admiration to degradation. It is rarely the space of six paces.

In 2008, the nonprofit organization Stop Street Harassment conducted a survey of 811 women. Three women reported no harassment. Three.

Ninety-five percent experienced leering/excessive staring, with 68 percent reporting at least 26 instances in their lives. Ninety-five percent were honked after, with 40 percent reporting at least a monthly occurrence. Eighty-seven percent experienced sexist comments, 82 percent vulgar gestures and 81 percent sexually explicit comments. Apparently, this is a given if you are a woman.

Seventy-five percent were followed by a stranger.

Fifty-seven percent were touched or grabbed sexually.

More than 37 percent admitted that yes, a stranger had masturbated at or in front of them in public.

I fear what statistics look like for the LGBTQ community. I fear all the evidence will state unambiguously, “If you are not a hetero-normative male, then public space is not yours.”

This is a letter to the boys who don’t do these things but stand silently by their embarrassing friends; I sense your deep unease. You look away, but you could do more. You could shame your friend in a way that we cannot. Your friend already concluded that women have less personhood than him. Our words don’t touch him. You could point to the thing that makes him harass women, the thing he is desperate to hide. Maybe he’d stop, knowing the spotlight will turn on him. Think how much better you would feel.

This is a letter to myself saying, “Stop imagining what you should’ve said.” Accept that you kept walking. There is something in him, and you don’t need to know what it is.

Might the University create a better environment? This is more than boys being boys. It is entrenched behavior that simultaneously reduces women to objects of sight and makes them wish not to be seen. The best possible outcome is that she is flattered. That she finds her worth in this. And that is just deplorable.

Given that my examples happened on campus or immediately adjacent, should female students accept this is a price they pay for going to school? I was outside the Blount dormitory when someone in a car shouted, “Hey girl, let me play with that asshole.” They drove away from any repercussions. I was humiliated. If you think this is not a University problem, consider that no one associated with the University ever said, “You don’t deserve this.” Or better, “You deserve so much more than this.” Women do not hear that because street harassment is seen as absurd or humorous rather than belittling. We are taught to laugh even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.

“Smile,” they say.

Note that this is a letter to boys, not men.

Amanda Moore is a graduate student in library sciences.