I was having fun dancing on the street with my friends on the Saturday evening of Veishea.

It had been a while since I had been able to really enjoy myself and not have to watch for people carrying open containers of alcohol and the like (which is a pain), and I was having a great time dancing on the crowded street with familiar faces around me.

Because it was crowded, I didn’t think much of it when someone slid behind me and stayed there. I did begin to have a vague sense of something wrong, however, when I felt a pair of hands at my waist.

My first reaction was to look at my hands. They were not at my waist. My second reaction was to look at my friends. None of them were behind me.

By that time I realized the hands belonged to some stranger who was most probably drunk and trying to get “friendly.”

I realize it may not be a big deal to some people, but I personally do not take kindly to being groped by strangers, inebriated or otherwise. In fact, it makes me mad.

So I pushed his hands off and turned around to glare at him, half-considering giving him a slap in the face. He hurriedly disappeared in the crowd, but not before I got a good look at him.

Later that evening, I caught him looking at me out the corner of his eye while he had some girl clinging to his neck.

After my “meeting” with this stranger, I began to do my “people-watching” while I danced, and noticed again what I always come across when I happen to attend a college dance party.

While a lot of people are there to enjoy the music and the company of their friends, a lot of men seem to be there to take advantage of the situation. What bothers me the most is the fact that a lot of women let them.

At the last house party I attended, I watched a woman let her “friend” pull her shirt up to the bottom of her bra. She continued dancing. At another party I watched as another woman let her “friend” unzip her jeans—and they dropped to the floor. I watched her hurriedly pull them up and continue dancing with him while she held her jeans up.

The why of it boggles my mind. Why do these women let men publicly treat them as sex objects?

What are they thinking while these guys run their hands all over them and all but pull their clothes off while a crowd of people either stare openly or out the corners of their eyes?

My first thought is that they are drunk. My next is that they weren’t thinking. Or maybe they didn’t have good role models. Maybe they watch too much television and think it is normal or “cool” to be treated that way in public. Maybe they get a kick out of it because they think it makes them look desirable.

Or maybe they don’t really like it but tolerate it because they don’t want to “make a big deal out of it.”

While tolerance is a virtue, I sometimes wonder if we as women have been taught to tolerate too much. While I am not the sort of person who likes confrontations, I wonder if the line has been drawn too far on our side and not in the middle.

On the other side of the coin, I wonder about men.

While I know many men whom I trust and consider my friends, I see too many examples of those I do not. Not only from the parties I go to or watch, but from things I hear about and see, both first-hand or through the media.

Last Thursday night, ISU had its annual “Take Back the Night” rally.

Last Thursday morning as I was walking by Catt Hall, I came upon a chalk-drawn figure on the pavement. The figure had its legs spread open, a penis drawn between them and the words “insert penis” written below it.

The thoughts that flashed through my mind at that point were by no means optimistic. I was reminded again of the statistic that says “a woman is raped in America every 5 minutes.”

I wondered how many women would be molested, assaulted or worse over the coming weekend while a whole town and more proceeded to party and drink to the arrival of spring and warm weather, and how many women would just keep silent about it.

What scares me is that I didn’t go looking for all this evidence. I just walk by or happen to be there and I see these things around me.

Maybe other people see it too, but just don’t talk about it.

Maybe we just don’t talk about too many things.

Crispina Chong is a junior in journalism mass communication from Malaysia.