Ladies, it’s a Friday night at Dickinson College. Your classes are done, you’ve napped, and you’ve already Caf Sat and had your fro yo. Clearly, the next question you ask yourself is, “What am I going to wear tonight?”

Going out on the town as a young college student is an integral part of our weekend way of life. Girls, you wear your crop tops and tight skirts because they make you feel HOT! Showing off your body is acceptable on campus, but what about elsewhere?

Coming to France, I’ve thought about cultural differences pertaining to school and family life, but never about my “going-out clothes.” The way I figured, young people were young people, and youths like to dress on the sexier side when going to clubs and out with friends. Little did I know, I was completely wrong.

I found out the hard way that if you leave your house wearing a tight skirt and a low cut shirt, you’re going to have a bad time. I was leaving my apartment around 9 p.m. to go meet some friends to go out on a Friday. My bus stop was about a 7-minute walk from where I live so I decided to walk briskly so as not to encounter any of Toulouse’s seedier members of society. I had not considered myself to be inappropriately dressed in any way because this was the way I had always dressed on the weekends at Dickinson. Yet, I was cat called, yelled at and approached by men, all while just walking to the bus stop. I was terrified! I never wanted a bus to arrive so quickly in my life.

Later the next day, I asked a French friend of mine why men treated women this way in France. His reply? “You had it coming if you were dressed that way.” I was confounded. My skirt makes it okay for a man to sexually harass me? I think not. Dickinsonian women, be proud to be a part of a community that values a woman’s right to dress as she wants. Not every place is as open to women making autonomous decisions such as how short she should wear her skirt.