FemiKarma

Sometimes I feel like a bad feminist. I practice the half-hearted wallet reach, not really expecting to pay for dates; I bugged not one, but two ex-boyfriends with questions while I was doing my taxes; and I’ve watched Girlicious three weeks in a row. Perhaps most shameful, I sometimes find myself contributing to the destructive girl vs. girl mentality that tends to rear its ugly head on the bar scene. For whatever ridiculous reason (competition for male attention, the coveted barstool, an open bathroom stall at McFaddens on St. Patrick’s Day, etc.), there are times when I forget that we’ll never get anywhere if we waste all of our energy cutting down each other.

I’m hoping though that a recent act of putting sisterhood first (and just being a decent person in general) will make up for some of my bad behavior. As I mentioned in my last post, I’m trying to rent out my apartment a month before my lease ends. I’ve gotten a lot of calls and e-mails, but also a lot of no-show appointments. Annoying. But anyway, one girl is really interested and actually contacted my landlord, but has some reservations about the building’s security. She e-mailed me to ask for my thoughts on how safe I think my place is, and I had to be honest and tell her that one of the reasons I’m moving out of my ground-floor apartment into a high rise is because I want better security—and although my current location set back off of the street is a plus, it also makes it darker coming home alone at night.

I told her my advice was to go with her gut, that although anything can happen anywhere, ground-floor access is a concern for women living alone, and feeling safe is perhaps just as important as being safe. And I ended my e-mail with a smiley :) to mitigate any guilt she might feel by not taking the apartment, as I’m sure she suspects she’ll be saving me from paying double rent. (And I’m still feeling guilty for leading on a woman who had to break her lease on a Logan Square apartment, deciding not to take it after two showings). I couldn’t in good feminist conscience mislead a potential renter into taking an apartment she won’t feel safe in alone, even if that means I may have to dissipate my savings to move into my new place.

And I’m hoping I’ve created a little karma that might spare me from being harassed by yet another over-served patron who didn’t allot enough time for the ladies’ bathroom line … but I’m not counting on it.