The other was a now-deleted post from the Modern Man titled “How to talk to a woman wearing headphones,” in which the author, Dan Bacon, assumes “if a woman wearing headphones is single and hoping to meet a boyfriend (or even a new lover), she will almost always be happy to take off her headphones to give you an opportunity to create a spark with her.”īacon’s post was widely ridiculed, especially by women, who noted that most of Bacon’s advice boiled down the dangerous tip of “don’t let her say no.” But it also illuminated a secondary use of headphones that women have been utilizing for years-as protection from street harassment.

The first is with Apple’s announcement of the new AirPods, the wireless earbuds that will be far-less noticable to others (and incredibly easy to lose). Headphones have hit the media conversation in two big ways in the past month. If people were too intimidated to talk to me, then it meant men were too intimidated to talk to me. Sometimes this was bad, like when I couldn’t hear honking cars or potential best friends saying hi to me on campus, but ultimately, it was a feature, not a bug. I bought them mainly for sound quality and comfort, but realized they were serving as unintentional armor against the outside world.

One of my best friends likes to joke that we would have been friends earlier had it not been for my gigantic headphones.

Ivisible earphones