I didn't yell.

Or curse. Or made such a scandalous ruckus. I just sat, stared, and questioned everything.

That was the case the first time I experienced being touched without my permission while sitting inside a very cramped jeepney.

On my chest. On the side of my neck. On my nape. On my back.

This was a long story, but that night just proved to me how difficult it was to be a girl. I was sixteen. But that experience taught me just how to respond in the following years to come.

If I get placed among other women, I would be called the least fashionable. I would wear t-shirts and jeans to work, and the times I would wear a dress I would cover with my hoodie. I wear skirts from time to time, because I like wearing them. They are comfortable and, well, make me feel like the girl I am.

But regardless how plain I look, how boring my clothes are, or how uninterested I paint my face to be, perverts just don’t stop. They won’t. Every week as I walk to work there would always be times when I get catcalled. Sometimes, followed. Sometimes, looked at so maliciously I wanted to puke.

If someday I would have my own children...

...I would choose to have a son. Kakie Pangilinan perfectly clears up all the clutter in my mind and puts together everything I could have wanted to say.

How very cynical, right? This isn't to discount the fact that there are men who experience sexual harassment, too. But as a girl, I just feel very strongly about this. It sucks when people tell girls what to wear.

Instead of teaching your daughters what to wear, teach your kids -- girls and boys alike -- to respect other people and their personal spaces.

Drawing I didn't scream

The inspiration came one time when I realized just how I wanted to draw expressions for a change. If I want to draw something happy, I want it to be of someone laughing. If I want to draw something sad, I want it to be of someone bawling his eyes out he turns red. If I want to draw something angry...

I want it to be someone who looked angry not at another person, but angry at herself. And I found the perfect subject on Pinterest (Pinterest, the perfect source for references hahaha).

I started with a rough sketch on a separate layer that I slowly blocked/shaded. Initially I wanted to use only one brush, but I ended up using both the pencil brush and the watercolor brush.

While completing the drawing, there were some things that I changed, just because I wanted to make her look a little more dramatic. I find that I enjoy drawing expressions, and I look forward to doing more of this.

Details

• Device: Samsung Galaxy Note 10+
• Apps:
  • MediBang Paint for Android
  • Snapseed
• Brushes: pencil (at varying opacity settings); watercolor (at varying opacity settings); smudge; blur

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