The Month I Pretended to Be Engaged

“If a strange man wouldn’t take me at my word, then surely the physical proof of my ownership was good enough for any man to believe.”

BY: SARAH HILTON

Art by Ryanne Kap // THE UNDERGROUND

I started wearing the ring during my Wednesday evening shifts at my library job. I’d only started my position a couple months prior, but already I had been approached and harassed by a number of male patrons while I was on the clock. Unfortunately, it was something I was used to experiencing in public, but I’d never had to worry about harassment at this level in the workplace.

I was in the elevator heading up to tidy the adult collections when I took the ring from my pocket and slid it on my ring finger. Thankfully, I wasn’t approached that evening, but my coworker, Marie, took notice immediately.

“Oh my god, you didn’t tell us you were engaged.” I had reached up to place a book back on the shelf when the ring caught her eye.

“Actually,” I started. “I’m not.”

I’d initially gotten the idea from a friend in high school. She was my age, though even in the ninth grade she looked a lot older and had developed much faster than everyone else.

She was sitting in the middle of a circle of girls, going on about the stories of how men approached her in public, almost like she was bragging about the attention. No one else was getting the kind of attention she was, so for her to be a step above the rest of us, she carried herself like she had something no one else had. And though it was degrading, none of us had the experience at that age to properly distinguish the difference between a compliment and harassment.

“I got it from my mom.” She flexed her hand out between us. It was a gold band with an emerald jewel that looked more extravagant than my own mother’s wedding ring. “She was done with this one, so I took it. Now, if some guy tries talking to me on the bus I don’t even have to tell him I’m a minor. I can just flash my finger and it does the job for me.” It was simple, she explained: it was pointless for her to try and pretend that she had a boyfriend because as soon as men heard that, it suddenly became a contest of who could take ownership of her. So having the proof that she belonged to someone else, it made those men realize there was absolutely no chance in pursuing her.

At the time, the anxiety of harassment hadn’t crossed my mind. I was fourteen and I’d never been approached by anyone in that context. I wasn’t even completely through puberty yet.

It didn’t occur to me that living the actual experience would make me feel so exposed or so small.

The attention started to pile on the summer before I turned fifteen. I couldn’t walk to the bus stop without getting honked at. I layered up when I went to the mall, averted prolonged gazes of the men walking down the street, I held my tongue whenever anyone made a comment about my body. I felt like I was at war for my safety every time I left my house.

I felt like I was at war for my safety every time I left my house.

Photo courtesy of @cosmotattoos

I learned to be more confident as I got older—talking back, standing my ground—though I started to think back on that girl in the ninth grade time to time, and I wondered if wearing a fake engagement ring really had the power to protect me from these unwanted advances.

I even started to research. According to The Star, Foreign Affairs Canada had advised in 2012 that “Single Canadian women travelling alone who don’t want to be hit on by strange men should wear a fake wedding ring and have a photo handy of their imaginary husband.”

If pretending to be engaged would “lower [my] profile” against the unwanted advances of strange men, it seemed like the perfect solution to my problem.

By the time I turned 19, it got to the point where standing up for myself wasn’t enough anymore. When I told men I wasn’t interested in their advances, it didn’t do anything other than simply add fuel to the fire.

I was working a cash shift at my old retail job when I’d had the last of it. Two men approached me on the other end of the counter to cash out a bottle of Monster and a pair of cargo shorts when one of them asked me: “Out of curiosity, have we had sex before?”

His friend was holding back amusement as I continued the transaction. My body was on autopilot. What could I say back to him that wouldn’t get me fired? There was nowhere for me to escape, no one to stand up for me. This man could take his purchase and leave the store like nothing happened, but I had to stay behind the counter. This new fear had taken hold of me: I wasn’t even safe in my own workplace.

“What? I can’t get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”

I printed his receipt for him and went home for the day, determined not to let any man make me feel so ashamed ever again.

After that, I carried the ring in my pocket everywhere I went. I figured if I symbolically “belonged” to another man as The Star described, then there wasn’t anything for me to offer the next person that attempted to harass me. If a strange man wouldn’t take me at my word, then surely the physical proof of my ownership was good enough for any man to believe.

For a while, the ring did offer a feeling of confidence. I couldn’t stop imagining the next time a man dared to approach me, the way I could completely shut him down just by lifting my finger. It was exactly as that girl had explained in high school: I could live my life feeling a little safer, knowing that when I took the bus or walked to the mall, I was taking this imaginary protective bubble with me.

I would be riding the bus, or sitting in a Starbucks when I would see a man begin to approach me. Sometimes, all I had to do was brush the hair out of my face, or scratch my chin—anything to bring attention to my hands—and it would drive them away (or at least that’s what I imagined what happened). For a little while, it really was as easy as lifting a finger.

But when I took a step back and looked at my encounters collectively, the ring didn’t do anything more than create awkward conversations between myself and coworkers, classmates, and actual engaged women that took notice of it. Customers and service workers alike would often greet me with “congratulations!” before anything else, and it took a few times for me to simply surrender and go along with the lie and save myself the embarrassment of explaining myself.

When men approached me, they didn’t take any notice of my ring. Often times, I was so dumbstruck by how bold their advances were that I didn’t even think to bring up the ring or my fake engagement at all.

There would be days I would be walking home from work, or crossing the street to catch the bus when a man would yell out expletives from his car, driving away before I had time to say a word. Sometimes I would be riding the subway and a passenger would rub up against me, leaving me so stunned I hardly had the nerve to brush him off. Suddenly, the confidence of wearing the ring disappeared. It was clear: having a ring on my finger didn’t offer me anything different than what I was already getting dealt. It was no different whether I was fake engaged or not.

When Marie finally noticed my ring at work, it was a conversation I didn’t expect to be having while on shift.

“You know, a lot of the girls here have been harassed or assaulted while on the clock but they’re too scared to come forward about it.” She explained that even though the management had a strict policy against patrons harassing staff members, most of the women at work kept it to themselves. “I understand why you’d want to wear a ring. I’ve tried wearing one too, but it only works on so many men. The persistent ones always find a way to get in your face. It really doesn’t matter if they think you’re with someone.”

She told me about an incident that had happened six months ago: our coworker Angela was shelving the returns when a male patron snapped a picture of her when he thought no one was looking. When she told management, he was immediately banned for two months from our branch, but it didn’t stop him from coming back after his ban to ask after her.

“Our supervisors have been very good about it, though. Whenever they see him come in anymore, they send Angela to stay in the back office to keep her comfortable,” she said. “It really irritates me, you never see any of the male librarians getting harassed or anything like that, but as soon as a woman gets to work it’s like open season.”

I was glad for the conversation we shared. It was good to know that I wasn’t the only one thinking these things every time I came in to work, and that I wasn’t alone in the harassment that was happening in my workplace. I’d received so many questions from friends and family about why I wore the ring, and so many people had questioned my tactics—“things can’t be so bad that you have to pretend to be engaged,” they’d say—so it was comforting having one person understand me on that personal level, someone who had tried to use a ring the way I had.

Photo courtesy of @cosmotattoos

It was a few weeks later when I was harassed again while at work. An older gentleman had approached me with a newspaper, telling me how much better I looked compared to the half-naked model he’d been looking at. I’d somehow managed to tell him off, my voice wavering only slightly, when a librarian spotted me just as the patron stormed off.

The last thing I wanted to do was explain what had happened to me, but as the librarian escorted me back to the staff room, she said she needed the man’s description at the very least for future reference, for our safety.

“If he comes back and does the same to someone else, we want to be able to protect you,” she explained. “I’m only asking so I can help you the best I can.”

I told her everything, description and all, feeling only slightly embarrassed of what had happened, but feeling safe nonetheless. At that point, I’d completely forgot about my ring—still snug on my finger, but completely unnoticed. I realized then that the ring truly had nothing to offer me—everything that I hoped it would bring me were all things that I could do for myself, and things other women were trying to do for each other. I didn’t have to pretend I belonged to a man to be safe in my workspace—the women I worked with were all looking out for each other, regardless of company policy.

We had a staff meeting the following month, where our supervisor brought staff harassment to the table.

“I know it can feel embarrassing to come to us with this when it happens, but I encourage you all to stick up for each other and keep each other safe. Coming in to work shouldn’t be something that causes anxiety or fear for any of you. You should each feel as comfortable as you would be in your homes.”

As inspiring as my supervisor was in our meeting, I’m in no way ignorant to the fact that harassment is something that can’t be solved indefinitely. Whether I wore this ring, stood my ground, or reported harassment cases to my supervisor, I know that as a woman, this is something I’m going to face for the rest of my life. But knowing that I have people on my side, it makes the idea of harassment less of an immediate burden on my mind.

The month I spent wearing this ring may not have warded off the attention of male patrons, but the conversations it started between myself and other women created an understanding between us that made me feel a little safer in the world. Even outside my work, it brought to attention to the fact that no matter where I was, I would always be safe under the unwavering support of other women.

I never wore the ring to work again.

Photo courtesy of @cosmotattoos