Some thoughts and stories about what is arguably the largest inequality remaining in the world: the sexual intimidation of women. This piece wasn't written specifically for International Women's Day, but the coincidence in timing is certainly appropriate.
7:12.
Shit.
Her body released a milligram of adrenaline, enough to force her heart to pound uncomfortably and a chill to travel from her neck down to her little toes.
She looked up from her computer screen and stared at the police phone number, the direct line to local dispatch. Hopefully it didn't come to that. The operator wouldn't speak English.
The thought of him knocking at the door and her trying to eek out a few words in Italian released another few debilitating shots of whatever neurochemical was starting to poison her ability to reason.
Him. She didn't even know who he was. He had shown up at her door one week past with a hard knock, the thuds demanding entrance. His voice has soon backed up the demand in accented Italian.
"What?"
"Open the door." Flat, not openly angry, but you could imagine suppressed rage.
"Who are you?," her words were now flowing a little better.
"Open the door."
"No." She backed away, glancing around her room, looking for her mobile. She hasn't been completely shaken, not yet. But his next words would completely rattle her.
"Open the door."
Open the door. In Arabic. Who was this guy? Did he know she would understand, or was he just guessing from her appearance? Had he seen men enter her apartment, and now he was out to enforce his medieval conceptions of social order?
"Go away. I will not open the door," in Arabic now. She spotted the phone, half-hidden under her pillow.
He had gone away that time, but he had come back. Every couple days, the evening would roll around, and at 7:30 he would show up, apparently as pious about time as about religion. At least that was her working assumption, as his intentions remained unclear. Did he just assume she was some slut who was asking for it?
What was clear was her fear.
During my years as a willing dorm room prisoner on a U.S. college campus, my fellow inmates would make disparaging remarks about a monthly rally entitled Take Back the Night. I can't remember the exact slurs anymore, but I certainly remember offering no defense of the rallies, much less joining them. My thoughts at the time were limited, direct reactions to what I remember as angry slogans shouted outside my window. Of course you have equal rights, I imagine myself thinking; stop blaming all men for a few unfortunate incidents.
Unfortunate incidents is, of course, a euphemism for things that are uncomfortable to talk about, in this case sexual harassment, stalking, and rape. Most college age men have yet to figure out how to square their sexuality with equality, after a lifetime of mixed messages from parents and society, and the group of angry protesters seemed to raise some primal fear of sexual castration amongst many of my dorm mates. Everyone wanted to get laid, and the use of alcohol was the preferred method. Some of the events that happened under its influence likely crossed the line, something I'm sure my co-inhabitants understood on some level. Derision of the marching women was a measure of self-defense against what we all, at some level, perceived as indirect (or, in the case of some, direct) accusations. We're not rapists, we're just horny. Perhaps there were some who were more enlightened, but they didn't make themselves known.
While young men and women will forever be looking for sexual experience, the way some men went about it was (and, I assume, is) deeply uninformed. During my college years, sexual harassment was routinely dismissed, sometimes even held up as the way to hit on women. Pseudo-scientific theories positing women as submissive, and declaring the necessity of cajoling them into sex, were common, often presented as half jokes that could later be disclaimed. Much of this behavior disgusted me at the time, but often I would just go along with it, my position in the hierarchy of the dorm already tentative at best.
More important in my college thinking was the modifier in front of the phrase unfortunate incidents: "few." I was lucky to grow up before horrors of abstinence-only education were forced upon Americans by the Christian moralists (who still find time to cheat on their wives), so I knew the basics of sex before leaving elementary school. But there was a gapping hole in the entirety of my K-12 sex-ed. I don't remember a single discussion about sexual harassment, much less sexual assault or rape, or the impacts upon targets and victims.
Moonlight lit the night, its nearly-full face reflecting off the water in the creek. It was still cold, the winter not having completely lost its grip, but both the walkers could imagine that spring was just around the corner. Or maybe that was just the glass of wine from the party being a little overly suggestive. They giggled, their voices quickly evaporating into the trees above their heads.
A lone figure trailed the women as they laughed their way toward home. Its gait was normal; the stride showed someone comfortable and confident. One of the women glanced back, checking for the person whose footfalls were clearly audible. Nothing disturbing. Just a someone walking home. It was a common path in the middle of town, and the hour was still relatively early.
A minute passed; the attack came suddenly, completely unexpected. He, for it was clearly a he, jumped on the back of the taller of the two women, his momentum knocking her to the ground. The second women jumped to the side. A scream emanated from her gut and was then stifled by a clenched throat, ending up in a terrified gurgle. A hand plied the hair of the knocked-down women. Her breath was coming back, and she prepared herself for a fight.
As a night owl, I often find myself walking home from work at rather late hours. Midnight or later is not uncommon. Living in the rather placid Svizzera italiana, the streets outside of the core of town are largely abandoned at such a "late" hour. I find the silence and emptiness quite welcoming. Fresh air, a gentle breeze, the moon glancing over of the mountain peaks, it's all a fabulous break from sitting in front of a computer for far too many hours a day.
A couple of years back, it started to dawn on me a that this sense of tranquility was not shared by many of my fellow denizens of the night. Upon noticing me, women would pull out cell phones and have, what I'm quite sure, where ghost conversations with ghost acquaintances. Or they would just appear jittery, hands in their purse, possibly around a spray bottle of mace.
I'm not entirely sure what to do about these situations. Trying to clarify my threat level, I'll cross the street onto the opposite sidewalk, or take another street home. This second strategy can backfire, as I turn the corner only to find the same walker once again. These are clearly ridiculous situations: I know I'm not a threat, yet I can't communicate that fact. Opening my mouth, stuttering broken Italian, and saying anything close to "don't worry about me," would, no doubt, not be particularly clarifying.
I could complain about how these experiences occasionally shatter the enjoyment of a nice walk home, but it's clear that it is not my world that is the unpleasant one. Many of my female friends are often less than happy at the prospect of walking around by themselves after dark. Some explicitly deviate from what they desire to do, preferring to stay at home rather than walk across town, or heading home early. Statistically, I live in a very safe community, but it's apparently not safe enough to grant equality to many of its citizens.
Instead of feeling safe, a pervasive fear, the kind that sits in the back of your mind, slowly and silently assassinating your will, affects some of my female friends. It's not something they think about consciously every day. Rather, it pops up at inconvenient times, while planning outings or travel. By putting a damper on such activities, it limits their ability to do things men take for granted: walking home late, going out to socialize solo, traveling by oneself. It's a sign that true equality is still a long ways off.
The train was rolling through snow covered hills, the seemingly distant hum of engine creating a slightly drowsy atmosphere. Occupants in the coach car were mostly starting out their windows, the car empty enough that each person had their own little kingdom, two couplets of chairs facing each other. A couple pairs of travels carried on in near silent conversation. No one was in a hurry to reach their destination, as that would only bring Monday several hours closer, and the start of another work week.
With a click and a gentle slide, the rear car door slid open. The man that walked through sported a sparsely filled in goatee on the sharp stub of a chin. A dark leather jacket hung over his shoulders, rustling as he stepped forward. Clearly inebriated, he was out of place, but no one could bring themselves to be too bothered.
The man shuffled forward to the first row of seats and proceeded to half-sit, half-fall into the chair next to the aisle. His legs splayed out, and his head tilted slightly to the left, toward the window and the occupant of the seat diagonally across the row. She roundly ignored him and continued to look out the window, the landscape rolling by, backwards from her perspective.
Minutes passed, the man's entry forgotten by all but those close enough to smell him. His hand had reached out, firmly brushing the leg of the woman, and then grabbing her purse.
"What don't you like about me?" He croaked the attempt to create pretext, his voice unable to maintain a constant pitch or volume. "Do you like it if I mess with your things?"
The verbal abuse continued as he riffled through her purse. This wasn't thievery, but casual harassment. She made an attempt to reclaim the bag, only to have her arm roughly grabbed and then shoved away.
Across the car's center isle, another man had been watching the situation develop. "Hey," the word barely escaping his lips the first time, and then much more strongly.
"Hey! She may not like what you're doing."
It was likely an understatement, and the man voice was still tentative and unsure. The intervening man's traveling partner stared at him, looking more confused than concerned There was a hint of anger, as if he were saying "why are you dragging us into this?"
"Dude, she may not like that."
This statement quickly lead to a back and forth consisting of the drunkard's broken, accented English, and the intervening man's attempt to seem both non-confrontational and assertive simultaneously. The woman remained silent the entire time, trying to shrink away from the reality of the situation.
No one else in the carriage saw fit to intervene.
Take Back the Night has a program called Shatter the Silence. As the website puts it:
“Survivors of sexual assault, rape, domestic violence, and sexual abuse are invited to Shatter the Silence by posting your stories. [...] Your strength and courage will help other survivors know that they are not alone, and that we will not tolerate these crimes or let them go silently into the night. Together, our stories will help our world work toward eliminating sexual violence.”I'd like to add another goal to the list: shattering the ignorance that many men have about the prevalence of harassment and sexual assault.
Numbers vary depending upon assumptions and technique, but somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of women are sexually assaulted physically during their lifetimes. Under reporting is rife. In studies that don't attempt to bias for this, the numbers are remarkably consistent across countries: 20-25% of women report having been sexually assaulted physically at some point in their life†. That's somewhere between a quarter and fifth of women.
Many of my male friends scoff at such numbers. They seem unbelievable, implying that, with high likelihood, some of the women we know, our mothers, sisters, friends, have been assaulted. This is both deeply disturbing and, at first, implausible, and is therefore dismissed. The women we know seem so normal, we think to ourselves, the numbers can't be true. But this is an illusion, created by the silence of the victims, out of fear of further humiliation and the pain of opening up old wounds, and an ignorance of their resilience.
Let me make a quick analogy. Ever since coming of age politically, I have been solidly anti-war. But it wasn't until I meant and became good friends with people from the countries the U.S. actively bombs, has bombed, or talks about bombing, that I truly became radicalized. Once you know the people that the bombs kill, the urgency of stopping war becomes much more immediate.
Personalization often has this effect. Gay-rights activists have long recognized the power of coming out, not just for the person, but also for their family and peers. It manifests the hypothetical, and forces (often unpleasant) confrontation. Sometimes people shrink back from such confrontation, but more often than not, everyone, eventually, reaches a more realistic accommodation with reality.
The stories in this article are all from friends, recounted to me over a couple of rounds of beer in a single evening. The endings have been excluded on purpose, although I am happy to say everything turned out okay in each case, if the word "okay" can even be used for such events. Along with other stories I have heard from female friends in recent years, they have made sexual harassment and assault an immediate reality for me. I have also witnessed the healing that recounting such stories can provide.
As difficult as it is, I want to encourage women (and men) to tell their stories of assault and harassment, particularly to men. Such story telling should be integrated into sexual education programs at an relatively early age, and repeated until at least the end of high school. The fears that women face need to be understood, on a deep and empathetic level, by the other sex. It is only then that we will start to see the number of "unfortunate incidents" drop from a quarter to fifth, and then, hopefully, someday, almost zero.
† See STOPVAW's amazing list of research papers and their summary at http://www.stopvaw.org. The U.N.'s special report on violence against women is also an excellent source of information.
Thank you, Cyrus -- very compelling and persuasive. As a woman with a story of sexual assault to tell may personalize statistics for men willing to listen, you personalize the hypothetical man who is the willing listener here. Your wider analogy about the damage of war not being quite real until we know those to whom it happened, is very pertinent. It suggests that even as those who take no part in the war have a duty to protest it once they are enlightened about it, so men who are not sexually violent towards women may need to align with fighters of violence against women, if equal rights is ever to mean equal safety. Facebooking this now!
Posted by: Elatia Harris | March 10, 2011 at 09:32 AM
Excellent point about making sexual harrassment an integral part of the sex ed curriculum in schools. The awareness should not only cover the physical aspects of sexuality and safe sex, as they relate to pregnancy and STD. "Safe sex" also implies that both partners need to feel emotionally safe.
Posted by: Ruchira | March 10, 2011 at 10:14 AM
This is very well written, and the interpolated stories (your own?) really make the topic vivid/personal.
A point of (hopefully constructive) criticism: when I started reading about the "largest inequality remaining in the world" (and surely some aspect of the status of women is at least a very plausible candidate) I did not expect to be reading about American college campuses and the streets of Switzerland. I'm aware of no problems in these areas that begin to rank in the top twenty globally...
Posted by: prasad | March 11, 2011 at 05:02 AM
Elatia, Ruchira, thanks for your nice comments. Elatia, you always seems to summarize my thoughts better than I can myself.
Prasad, the stories are second-hand from three close friends. I ran my interpretations by the original sources and then edited for accuracy, but the dialog and scene-setting are somewhat my own creations.
The line about sexual intimidation was meant to be global in scope, but my examples, due to who I know and my own life experiences, are largely constrained to the Western world. Not very inclusive, but I hope they can be taken as examples of a global problem.
Thanks for the feedback!
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | March 11, 2011 at 08:10 AM
One more scenario:
"A white hot rage danced before her eyes. She had half-anticipated this as she boarded the crowded bus, filled with a mix of returning office workers and college students. Who did the groping hand belong to? It darted towards her body, and she grabbed it with her free hand, hoping to deter it before it could touch her breast, not quite succeeding in time. With her other hand, she raised a hefty file, and swatted at the body connected to the hand. The bus, filled with the buzz of a hundred talking heads, fell silent.
"How dare you!", she screamed. Not a word of support from the bystanders, who started up a sneering discussion about 'shameless hussies' and such.
The bus rolled to a stop, and she lashed out a last time with her folder, as a quiet path cleared for her to exit the bus, which she proceeded to do, staring fixedly at every hand in her path. None made any false moves.
Heart still pounding, she trudged home in the rain, mentally keeping her focus on her surroundings to watch out for any more would-be molesters. The rain had mercifully driven all such potential threats to the warmth of the neighborhoood tea shop."
Shame and fear are not the only emotions resulting from being sexually harassed, there is a sense of rage that never dies, never allows you to walk as peacefully as you did when you were an innocent young child.
Posted by: Sujatha | March 11, 2011 at 11:38 AM
Sujatha,
What a common scenario that was for us in India (north India is by far the worst) during our college, and even work years.
Posted by: Ruchira | March 11, 2011 at 12:14 PM
Interestingly, I do recall discussing sexual assault, etc. quite often during k-12 health education. But I grew up in The Bubble.
Your post also reminded me of this Cowboy Junkies song, can't remember if I pointed you to it before:
http://www.lyricstime.com/cowboy-junkies-hunted-lyrics.html
Sadly, the only youtube video of it is seriously crappy quality.
For me there has to be a balance, to realize that there is sexually motivated violence and take steps to protect myself and stop it in society in general, without dwelling on it so much that I curtail my activities unnecessarily, something I did for years. (But I still think the Cowboy Junkies song is great.)
Posted by: Allison | March 12, 2011 at 12:26 PM