Understanding power structures

If you’re going to study any isms, the first thing you should really look at is power structures – how society has traditionally structured itself and evolved. In feminism, this is often called the “Patriarchy” (rule of the father/male role models). In terms of intersectionality – which is about where feminism meets anti-racism, meets class issues, etc (ie minorities in different categories) – this is called the Kyriarchy… The interaction between different systems of domination and submission.

I start with the Patriarchy as this is the one I most commonly can relate to. This is the idea that in western society most things are geared towards men – that society values the role of men much more than the role of women, and denies women the same opportunities and equality. There are lots of stats around but what is most well-accepted is that there are more CEOs who are men than women, and more MPs who are men, than women. Why is this? There is nothing in the requirement of being a CEO or an MP that inherently discounts women – it is not an explicit requirement, for example, to have a beard or a penis, or any other thing which we dictate to be ‘male’. Levels of testosterone or maleness should not dictate that you cannot be a CEO or an MP. Yet women continue to be under-represented in these fields. Women are also paid much less in work – again, there are statistics and reports on this out there, should you wish to find them. Yet women are over-represented in the public sector – why is this? This is what feminists talk about as the Patriarchy – that “men” as a group are generally dominating, and much better off than women are. That is entirely different to saying that individual men hold power – although some do, this is clearly an inaccurate generalisation.

It’s a fairly simple concept, once you understand it, and one you can apply to any arbitrary category of society – for example, with regards to sexuality, ‘heterosexuality’ is the dominant group and ‘homosexuality’ is the oppressed. It follows thusly:

- Cisgender people are dominant, transgender people are the oppressed.

- White people are dominant, non-white people are oppressed.

- Men are dominant, women are oppressed.

- Middle class is dominant, working class are oppressed and exploited. You could even take this one further and look at the ‘ruling classes’ (ie politicians, nobility, etc) as dominating over all, including the middle classes. Then the middle class dominate over those below them, and so on – so the lowest class in society is oppressed by all of those above it.

That is not to say that anyone who happens to fit into one or all of these dominant groups is a horrible person – just that society is automatically geared towards giving them an advantage. They are privileged. These are social structures of power. It is easy for one person in the dominant group to have power over someone in the oppressed group. And while it is possible for someone in the oppressed group to be horrible to, or not like, those in the dominant group, I maintain that it is impossible for there to be ‘isms’ in this context. It is in fact entirely understandable why people in the subordinate group may hate those who have been oppressing them. Allan Johnson explains this in The Gender Knot (2005):

“Given the reality of women’s oppression, male privilege, and men’s enforcement of both, it’s hardly surprising that every woman should have moments when she resents, or even hates, ‘men’.”

It is not possible for women to be ‘sexist’ against men. It is not possible for non-whites to be ‘racist’ against white people. There is a distinct difference between group interactions (ie systematic oppression from society and its rulers – who are, incidentally, mainly cisgender, straight, white, middle class men) and individual interactions. There is a difference between me growing up in society, feeling that the message I’ve heard is “as a woman you are worth less than a man” – and me insulting an individual man, telling him he is not good at something/making generalisations. That might be wrong and not-very-nice, but it is not sexist; it is not misandrist (I have already argued that misandry doesn’t exist here and here). It is me disliking an individual man. Whereas a man doing the same thing to me, does so in a generally anti-women and hostile environment that affects me to a large extent and has a negative effect on my behaviour and the way I perceive myself (see street harassment that happens worryingly regularly if you happen to be a woman and go outside your own house). That’s sexism, and that’s why women need to fight back.

The reason that women – and other oppressed groups – feel the need to have women-only safe spaces, and should be allowed them, is that they can achieve much more without the interference of the aggressors. Some women feel deeply uncomfortable discussing feminist ideas in front of men, because they feel that men will dominate the conversation – this aggressive hijacking of the conversational thread or debate happens all the time in every day life where the dominant groups take over. It’s called derailing, and as a ‘privileged’ member, it takes a while to see that you’re doing it. This is why, when people discuss racial issues, I fully support them and I add my two cents if need be – but I’m more intrigued about following what the people who have to live with abuse due to their skin colour, have to say about it. I try to listen more and speak less. What can I possibly have to add? I have never been the victim of a racial attack and I never will be, and I suspect they are fed up of white people claiming the mantle for themselves.

What is really interesting about power structures is that once you see one (of course, I started with the patriarchy) you begin to see all. I once would have considered myself the victim of a ‘racist’ attack, where I was called a “white whore” “white prostitute” “fucking white slag” and so on by a group of young black men. I was shaken up by the experience – but the more I thought about it later on, the more I realised that, had they called me “whitey” I wouldn’t have had an issue. There is no historic meaning or basis for insults against white people – whereas there is a rich, awful history and background to, for example, the ‘N’ word. What was hurtful and awful about me being shouted at was that I was being called a prostitute, a slag, and a whore, simply because I was female. It didn’t matter what colour my skin was – it was sexism rather than racism. I think this really sums up my understanding of power structures, and it’s why – among a great many other things – Diane Abbott isn’t a racist.

How to be a good feminist

1. Don’t tell others they are bad feminists, or how to be good feminists, because this makes you look like you reckon you are the arbiter of what makes feminism ‘right’. Which makes you look really arrogant. And arrogance isn’t an attractive or useful trait.

2. I lied about there being a second thing. That’s it.

#Fem11 Pt 2: Challenging Sex Object Culture

This seminar was really popular, and held by the activist group OBJECT, which opposes the sex object culture. That is, the objectification of women – through lapdancing clubs, sexist advertising, and the media in general. What is objectification? The following words and phrases explain how women are objectified/the characteristics of objectification:

• Instrumentalism (eg, only to provide sexual gratification)
• Denial of autonomy
• Inertness
• Fungibility (that women are interchangeable)
• Violability
• Ownership
• Denial of subjectivity (dismissive of feelings, perspective)
• Reduction to a body
• Reduction to appearance (as discussed at the Endangered Bodies seminar)
• Silencing

The group have already worked on several campaigns including staging a protest against lapdancing clubs, and this hilarious anti-lad’s mags stunt in Tesco (best to watch from 1min30 as the beginning is the preparation):

The group, along with the Fawcett Society were also heavily involved in the campaign for the reclassification of lapdancing venues as “sexual entertainment venues”. This meant stricter regulation on who could and who couldn’t open lapdancing clubs – they were previously classified in the same group as coffee shops. Their latest campaign is ‘Stop Press Porn’ and aims to stop porn from being so easily accessible in supermarkets etc. In this video, which was also shown in the seminar, the spokeswoman for Object argues about lad’s mags with a former editor of one:

While I generally agree with their point about porn and about objectification, and I quite like the way they have tackled some issues (the pyjama Tesco protest is hilarious and creative) there’s something I can’t really put my finger on that I’m not sure about. Sorry, that’s a really useless analysis of something that was very interesting and very prevalent in society. Reducing women to objects is restrictive and harmful but I think that this comes across wrongly as prudish, and that perhaps some of the language used is inaccessible and hard to follow. When we say objectification, what we mean is the general societal idea that women are to be looked at, to be touched, and admired, and they should be passive and inert. Of course, this strips women of their autonomy and ability to make decisions, it is part of a wider culture that says it is ok to rape, and that it’s ok to do whatever you want to a woman as long as you get your rocks off. So you see, it’s not a good thing at all.

I don’t really have much to add to this really, other than to raise the point that this is an issue, and very harmful to women (and men in some circumstances – the best example I can give is that teenage boys don’t really learn how relationships work, how to respect their female peers – because in porn and in lads magazines, the sex is on tap and freely available). I realise that there is an argument that most people realise films are not realistic but I dismiss this entirely because a) this is probably most people’s first introduction to sex when they are at an impressionable age b) sex, and the reality of it, is rarely discussed in mainstream education and media. My sex education film was one video of a man and woman rigidly laying side by side holding hands, then having awkward, technical sex (man on top of course) – and then it cut to a cartoon image of the mechanics of sex. So who is going to make feminist porn or sex education videos purely for the purpose of adding it to the school curriculum to show boys/young men how sex really works? Who is going to sit down and explain to a bunch of teenaged boys that women come in all different sizes and shapes, that pornstar bodies are not the norm? Exactly. We are setting them up for disappointment and encouraging misogynistic attitudes.

#Fem11 Pt 1: Endangered Bodies

Yesterday I went to my first feminist conference, Fem 11 (organised by UK Feminista / Kat Banyard) and this is the first of a couple of posts about it. I’m separating them out because they tackle different issues.

The first seminar of the day, I actually wanted to go into the End Violence Against Women discussion, but I was late, and that was full so I went downstairs and dived into the nearest room. When I saw it was the ditching dieting/bodies related one (run by Endangered Species), I was a bit disappointed because it was probably the one I was interested in the least. How wrong I was!

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really listen much to the opening statements but more to the views of the people who were in the audience. The women organising the event spoke a little about the dieting industry – worth billions – and how the culture of dieting is totally damaging. They explained that the BMI system of ‘measuring obesity’ is flawed, that individual bodies need different amounts to sustain themselves. Under the BMI system, Brad Pitt and George Clooney would be classed as obese – yet they are seen as the most desirable men in the world! They then asked people to think about some questions, among these lines:

• What does a diet mean to you?
• What did you think would happen when you started dieting?
• Can you remember a carefree time of eating?
• Do you think you will feel at peace with your body?

There was another question, and they were probably better worded than that but that sets the scene well enough. Obviously, I am well aware that other women are conscious about their bodies, but “other women” has always been an abstract concept to me. It has always been an unreachable, unimaginable group of ‘other women’, so I’ve always felt like secretly it is just me that suffers from body confidence issues. But it’s hard to remain that way when there are hundreds of women – and men – in a room together, nodding in sad agreement, each with their own startingly similar story.

It started out quite general, but as the discussion went on, people started mentioning things that I had honest-to-God thought were just problems with me as an individual. There are a few people who ‘stood out’ to me, but actually I wish I could tell you everything that was said by the audience because it was all so heartbreakingly true.

One woman talked about her dieting cycle: She had been dieting for most of her life, and she’d tried every diet going. Basically, dieting and losing weight became and obsession that took over her life.
One lady in the audience said she had just arrived in the UK, and that she has never felt so much pressure to look a certain way in her life! She said that she felt sorry for women in the western world because they can’t escape the pressure.
A woman of 43 said that she’d been dieting since she was 19, and that she assumed that when she hit her forties she would feel at peace with her body. She admitted she wasn’t sure she ever actually would.
At one point, school teacher and councillor, Rania Khan, said she knew a pupil who was saving up for surgery. The girl was 14.
A young woman, in response to the “What did you think would happen when you started dieting?” (may have been “what did you want to happen”) question, said: I wanted people to leave me the hell alone. She spoke about how other people assume they have the right to talk to you about your body, and tell you what you’re doing wrong.

A couple of people said something so relevant to me I almost cried. One woman said that she grew up in a house where her mother hated her body, and her sister hated her body, and she had never felt anything but hatred for the way she looked, because she didn’t know any different. This is exactly the situation I’m in. I have never known anything but hatred for myself. I have always been aware of food and what it does to my appearance/body, ever since I can remember. I remember being put on small diets when I was young. I remember my mum struggling to lose weight; I remember my sister struggling with an eating disorder. I remember counting calories, weighing food out, feeling guilty every time I ate. I still do. The over-consciousness of food has made me not really appreciate it as much. Every time I eat, it feels like a reminder of how bad a person I am for not being thin; of how greedy I am because I can’t not eat for days; how little will-power I have. I have a bad relationship with food, a really bad one. But I don’t know how to break the cycle because it is so ingrained in everything I do.

One girl said that she tried hard to intellectualise it, but she struggled to really take to heart that everyone is beautiful regardless of their size or their shape. A slim woman stood up and said: I have a fast metabolism and I’ve always been thin, but people even say to me “What are you going to do when you have a baby? What will you do when you inevitably put weight on?”… So even thinner women suffer from body fascism and negative assumptions.

The key thing here is that weight-consciousness is literally inescapable for women. It’s only when you really think about it that you realise it is such a massive issue. If you lose weight, as another woman pointed out, people compliment you – “You look lovely! Have you lost weight?” – being thinner makes you more beautiful. You question if you looked bad before, because suddenly dropping a few pounds makes you more desirable.

I probably have more to say on the subject but I needed to write about something that is a big part of my life, and say thank you to all the women in that seminar. Thank you, for making me feel that I’m not alone. Thank you for your brutal honesty. I didn’t contribute myself but I sat on the sidelines close to tears for most of it. Your words resonated with me and I just hope that some day we will live in a society that judges people on personality, not weight. To end with the (probably misquoted) words of a 14 year old girl in the seminar: “I try to tell my friends that they are beautiful, because they are. I try to tell them that they shouldn’t worry, because I don’t judge them on their weight. I judge them by how nice a person they are.”

Fighting oppression via the medium of… Uh, cupcakes

A while ago, I read a piece somewhere online about young feminists not knowing what the Fawcett Society was, and how terrible it was (well, sort of). I hope I can be forgiven this this feminist faux pas – and perhaps even prove that maybe the FS is not the be-all and end-all, nor the definitive line of British feminism.

We have all heard the stats about women basically being ignored by consecutive governments; how cuts and redundancies will hit women hardest and nobody cares or bats an eyelid or does anything about it. Women are being trod on left, right and centre. We can all agree that this is not restricted to Conservatism – Labour were just as bad. But it’s all okay. Because the Fawcett Society are taking a stand! There’s a protest soon. A protest that requires you ‘dress up’ in a 50s theme. Can’t make it? It’s alright – you can host your own tea party!

I could cry.

I get that it’s trying to be ironic. “The government are taking us back to the 50s, we need to show them we won’t take this anymore” etc. But irony doesn’t wash with feminists when it’s being used on terrible, sexist t shirts. It doesn’t wash when men make sexist jokes. Why should it wash with other women that we are allowing ourselves to be portrayed in this way?

Obviously, I am all for the protesting. I am all for sisterhood and displays of it. Playing dress-up and baking cakes for your nearest and dearest is, I’m sad to say, absolutely not civil disobedience, and doesn’t say to anyone: “I’m really angry and I’ve had enough”. What it says to me is: “I have the money to go out and buy an outfit so I can play dress-up for the day, and I have the luxury of time to be able to bake cakes and have a tea party”.

The thing is, it appeals to a particular breed of feminist. It appeals to the ones that don’t particularly want to get their hands grubby, the ones who are most probably not going to be affected by these changes that the government are putting through. I am not saying that people cannot represent others who can’t go. But I find that the very nature of this form of protest really smacks of privilege, and is kind of offensive to those women who are not geographically able to physically protest, who don’t have the money to spend on a new ironic 50s outfit, and who don’t have the time/skills/money to host a tea party.

Those women who are too busy working several jobs and trying to run a house who are actually being affected – does this protest speak to them? Does it speak to me? No. I want a protest with fire in its belly. I want brilliant slogans, fantastic creative banners. We women are just as good at being resourceful, creative, and bloody angry – just the same as our male counterparts. How can you reduce such a group to such a small and conformist idea?

Underneath it all, it says: Well, this is what we’re good at, ladies. We are good at being hostesses, and we’re good at shopping and we’re good at baking – we may as well face up to it and use our inherent biological assets and skills as a tool for protest.

No, no, NO. It’s not subversion, it’s submission.

I am glad that they are doing something (incidentally this is the first thing I’ve seen) but in short, it’s a really, really terrible concept and I honestly think I am damn well vindicated for largely ignoring the Fawcett Society up until now.

Is misandry a myth?

I was talking about racism a while ago with a friend – the kind of friend who really makes you think; one that forces you question your world view, introduces new concepts and challenges you to stand up for your beliefs. I said that years back, when I was walking home from school, I was the victim of a ‘racist attack’. “What do you mean racist attack?” he said. I explained was walking home from school when I got called “white prostitute”, “white bitch” and more by a group of 3 black boys, only slightly older than me.

“That’s not racist abuse, Soph” he said. And he rationalised it for about ten minutes, and I sat there wondering why he probably had a point; it dawned on me that actually it probably wasn’t racially motivated. If I had been a white man, I would not have been shouted at – I am almost certain of this. Had I happened to have been non-white, would I have been shouted at? Possibly. And then I realised, the part that scared me the most, the part that really angered me about that interaction was that I was referred to as a ‘bitch’ and a ‘whore’ – words with sexual connotations. Words that belittled me as a woman. I realised, had they just shouted “Hey, whitey!” would it have bothered me? Nope.

Someone tweeted me the other day saying that if anyone accuses me of misandry (it happens to me a lot) then they are inherently sexist, no questions asked. So, this kind of idea got me thinking. Is it possible for an oppressed minority section of society (by any means – race, gender, sexuality etc) to be ‘hateful’ towards the other and for it to be as unacceptable as it is for those in the majority to do so?

The idea that misandry is not actually possible is not a new one. I suppose for me it makes sense most when you consider that every interaction between two people does not take part in a social ‘vacuum’ free of assumptions, pressures, individual background and history, and a whole host of other variables. If interaction took place in an ideal society, where “isms” did not exist; where individuals are treated as individuals, then clearly this would not be the case – clearly it would be misandrist to say certain things, and the word would carry as much weight as the term ‘misogyny’. But we live in a society where women are consistently put down, not by individuals, but by their culture; by most men they meet (without a thought as to that potentially being the case!) and where women are stereotyped as characters of fantasy… Princesses in pink, ruthless bosses, etc. When men are misogynistic to women, it contributes to a wide range of experiences carried down for generations and perpetuated throughout her life in everything she does. When the situation is reversed it’s hardly comparable.
Much like me and my ‘racial abuse’ story: Why would it matter for someone to call me white? I am. I’ve never had the burden of being oppressed because of my race. And so men have never had the burden of being born a woman.

Sociologist Allan Johnson says: “Given the reality of women’s oppression, male privilege, and men’s enforcement of both, it’s hardly surprising that every woman should have moments when she resents or even hates ‘men’.” This suggests that not only is it reasonably normal for women to feel exasperated at their treatment in society, but that misandry is actually a valid response to oppression that women face. And they are right to do so, as they are restricted in varying degrees from doing what they want to in the same way that men are allowed to.

What’s more, the accusation of misandry tends to come out when discussing feminism and womens’ issues. It’s more of a cynical attempt to turn the very real and very prevalent ongoing victimisation and subordination of women into ‘what about the menz?!‘ It’s a classic derailment tactic when you don’t have a leg to stand on: Turn a genuine social problem around and make it about you, personally. Ignore the fact that we are not discussing your personal issues here, and continue. Tell me how bloody unfair it is that some girl you met five years ago broke your heart, and doesn’t even send you Christmas cards anymore. What a bitch she was, eh?

The fact is that misandry is an insult resorted to when there is very little capacity for honest and truthful debate. Why, otherwise, would you offer such a retort that generally shuts down debate and, ironically, proves the point that women do not feel listened to? It’s a way that, to me, men signal that they are not willing to even see it from a woman’s point of view – it is the clue that they have lost the argument and they are no longer willing to engage. Shutting down debate because you are a woman and he is a man… It’s sort of like mansplaining.

In looking for definitions of misandry, even the Urban Dictionary definition of misandry points to Allan Johnson’s work, which posits that misandry has no place in a patriarchal society. He states that “mainstream patriarchal culture offers no comparable antimale ideology (for women), and so their resentment is based more on experience as a subordinate group and men’s part in it.” (From The Gender Knot: Unraveling our patriarchal legacy) In other words, we are oppressed by a group of ‘men’ (in very general terms) so we are entitled to dislike this vague group of ‘men’ – and it’s not misandry to do so.

I could probably write a lot more about this and I may well do in the future. But to surmise: to say that women are misandrists is to completely ignore the clear gender divides in society, ignore thousands of years of marginalisation, and ignore social and cultural traditions that seek to dominate women, sometimes in the most subtle of ways. And it makes you a twit to boot.

Feminists aren’t losing their way at all, Victoria

Today Victoria Coren asks “Are slutwalkers losing their way?“

In short: No. Though it has to be clarified that there is a kind of conflation between ‘feminists’ and ‘SlutWalkers’. They are not necessarily the same people. Pedantry aside, there are several things I have an issue with in the piece – I’ll pick out the two most obvious bits that I disagree with.

Firstly, she mentions Ken Clarke and his proposals to cut sentences in half if rapists plead guilty early on:

That’s why Ken Clarke is right to want slashed sentencing for early pleas of guilt and such a shame the argument disappeared in the row over his sloppy language.

I see an issue with Clarke’s proposed reform in terms of the direct effect of imprisonment on those who rape – rehabilitation (longer explanation as to what prison is supposed to do but largely I’d say rehabilitation and integration back into society is key). If the average sentence for a rapist is 8 years (though the figures seem to suggest it is longer than this – there is no alternative figure put forward, though) then under these reforms the sentence would be 4 years. Is this enough time for effective rehabilitation? I did see some figures somewhere about rehabilitation only being effective over a certain amount of time – I don’t have them to hand right now, and I can’t remember where they came from (were they to be trusted? Perhaps not).

From what limited discourse I saw – the justification for Clarke’s reform proposals were not really robust enough. Sure, it would spare the victim the horror of reliving their experience. But in the interests of justice being carried out – ie preventing rapists from raping again, will halving sentences (and thus halving time in which to rehabilitate) help at all?

On the Playboy Club protest:

I am a feminist; I think feminism is about free choice, independence and solidarity; of course I believe that women should wear whatever they like and I say that only a hypocrite would march in hotpants one day and rail against croupiers in rabbit tails the next.

She’s missed the point here. It’s not about the clothes, it’s about the fact that most of the women who work there will not be doing so in absolute free choice as we would assume. No, of course they aren’t being smuggled into the club, but there is a culture of supposed ‘free choice’ in terms of womens’ choices, propagated by those who would benefit, ie. men and the sex industry. Young women today grow up feeling that the only way to succeed is through using their bodies, seeing themselves as sex objects. And what’s worse is it’s sold to these women as “empowerment”. Empowerment is only found where you make your true choices. As far as I’m concerned it is a false dichotomy to suggest that women would go into the sex industry or do that sort of thing out of pure free choice – ie without some pushing agenda that has forced them to. What woman would willingly choose to face the threat of sexual harassment, degradation and even violence, on a daily basis? A woman who has the self-confidence to achieve whatever she wants? Or a woman who has nothing to lose because she feels like she is worthless anyway?

How do I know that this is more or less a universal truth? Because I have grown up feeling like this. I am not the way that I ‘should’ be, so I am worth nothing. Why would anyone want me when they could have someone who is skinny, blonde, has beautiful skin and doesn’t argue back or (seem to) resist? Why would you want someone who is un-mouldable, when you have hundreds of thousands who are – by virtue of the fact that they epitomise ‘womanhood’; what it means to be a woman, in society’s view?

People like me have been told their whole lives that they are worth nothing – because we dare to stray from what is socially acceptable behaviour. This is what SlutWalk was about. Women should be free to do what they want – and honestly, if they genuinely want to be a playboy bunny or whatever (when given other options and the self-confidence and self-esteem to feel they can make a valid choice!), then that’s their prerogative – but I don’t think that half of them would be there if they had some other aspirations other than what the cult of celebrity helps trot out: “Be famous” “Bag a footballer” “Everyone’s got dodgy old pornographic photos so it’s fine” “Boob jobs are essential for getting ahead” “Men want tits and arse” “No pain, no gain” “Women are good for looking at and not much else”…

I didn’t protest at the club. I didn’t even go to SlutWalk in the end – partially for semantic reasons – but mostly due to unavailability. I am against the Playboy Club in itself; not the women who work there. There’s a false dichotomy at play here, that those who work there do so out of choice, and to be empowered. I’m quite disappointed that Victoria is buying into the same old arguments trotted out at every given opportunity. Empowerment is achieved through doing things for yourself, out of your own free choice – not through doing what other people have told you you are only useful for.

On fear of street harassment being ‘ridiculous’

[Potential trigger warning - I realise I have not been good at pointing these out in the past]

I linked to this guide for men – ‘how to approach strange women and not be maced‘ – on Twitter and Facebook. I tweeted yesterday that a friend’s response to the piece was that it was patronising, and I quote: “Get a fucking grip. Someone spoke to me on the train! Oh no! I think I might cry, please someone call the police my rights have been encroached upon!” I then tweeted:

That’s a quote from a man who clearly doesn’t understand that actually yes for some women being spoken to by strangers IS harassment.

I seem to have ruffled a few feathers, from “You don’t honestly believe that do you?” to suggestions that I need a “reality check”. No, I think they are the ones who need a reality check – to realise that many, many women feel this way but wouldn’t ever say it. Purely because this is the kind of reaction they get. “Don’t be ridiculous. Not every man is a rapist. You’re being far too paranoid.”

This smacks of complete ignorance to the fact that when women are raped they are constantly told they could have done more. They could have not gone out on their own. They could have not been so drunk. They could have worn something different. Yet when we take measures to protect ourselves, we are being irrational?

I have had my bum pinched, been shouted at, been stopped in the street to be told I am “beautiful”, I have had horrible experiences with men I know, or men that I felt safe with. I have been sexually assaulted by a bouncer in a club – when leaving the club, as he requested, he decided to change from aggressively pushing me out of the door, to pulling me towards him “Gimme a kiss! Gimme a kiss!” … I have never fought so hard in my life. A bouncer. They are supposed to stop this sort of thing happening, aren’t they? He did the same to my friend. I wanted to report it but I didn’t think I would be believed, so he is probably still working at the bar. Perhaps he has raped someone there. Who knows?

There is, of course, a distinction to be made between actual rape and street harassment, both being on the same scale but at different ends. Street harassment is milder, but still encompasses everything from a wolf whistle to physically touching a woman, to exposing oneself in public. This happens to women all the time. I don’t think men understand that. In any given month I have probably experienced at least one example of street harassment. On a night bus home once, I saw a man masturbating in front of me. Could I say anything? No. Did anyone else notice? No. But it shook me up, and it made me feel sick, and it made me feel powerless and disgusting.

This happens to women as regularly as it rains. All the time. How do we know that the man approaching us is simply wanting to ask the time, or wanting something more? Maybe he ‘just’ wants to touch our breasts. Who knows? I’m not sure what is so horribly offensive about me wanting to reduce the risk of being attacked in any way. I really don’t. And as for ‘crying’ about it – when people approach me, do I cry, punch them, or react in a negative way? No. Of course not. But my mind goes into overdrive, thinking ‘Can I get out of this if I need to? Where can I go? What do I have on me that could hurt him if I needed to? Is anyone else around that could help me?’ I think of how I can survive it, should I need to. But externally, I’m warm and friendly. I answer their question, or listen to what they say. I don’t know why so many people are offended by my need for self-preservation. I am never rude to people unless they warrant it.

I’m not the only woman who feels this way, I can guarantee that. And I’d appreciate it if I wasn’t called ridiculous, for feeling (and for me, it is just a feeling; not a reaction) something that is a perfectly justifiable reaction to situations that have gone awry in the past. What is ridiculous, though, is that I have to live in this sort of world where I am forced to second-guess everyone and everything. I have to think of every possible scenario and prepare myself for any eventuality. That article about how to approach women has some great advice for men on how to be less intimidating, and actually, more respectful to women who are strangers. I don’t see the issue myself.

Reclaiming ‘slut’

I agree with the aims of SlutWalk. I do. As a victim of street harassment and as a woman who has had some not-very-nice experiences with men and expressing sexuality, I fully support the concept behind it. Victim-blaming is shameful and harmful, and women should not feel that their behaviour should be restricted in order to ‘avoid’ being raped. The sad and awful truth is, if somebody wants to rape you, then they will try to. Whether you are dressed in a mini skirt, or jeans and a t shirt. Whether you are drunk, or sober, or high. Whether you are old or young. Whether you are working or minding your own business. A rapist is a rapist, and the only thing rape victims have in common is misfortune. Thus, it seems like a logical conclusion to me, that it is a disgrace when people tell women they are at fault.

That said, I don’t think there is anything remotely redeeming about the word ‘slut’; nothing in it which would make me want to reclaim or take ownership of the word and declare myself one. Why? It’s quite simple. It has been used for years to disparage women and make them feel ashamed, and it’s worked. Slut can’t be converted to ‘sexy’, ‘confident’ or ‘self-assured’. Slut is bad. We learn it from a young age. I’m not sure how using it in a positive way could change the fact that it is intrinsically a negative word and will always be used by the ignorant in that way.

Laurie Penny wrote a while ago on her New Statesman blog about defending the ‘c’ word. I feel the same way about this too. I don’t really have much of an interest in reclaiming it other than using it in its true form (perhaps that is the point, and maybe I missed it) … But I personally use it so rarely that I’m not sure this is even worthwhile.

It’s something to ponder though. My view is that surely by taking a word that is used by the dominating group, and trying to spin it on its head, is more succumbing to that dominating group anyway? By using their language – even in a different context – that shows some sort of submission? An acceptance that the word is used widely and that we take issue with it? It ruffles feathers but I’m not sure it will achieve much besides. I understand if others are happy to be labelled that (more on labels at a later date) and I respect their right to do so but it makes me feel horribly uncomfortable. Still supporting SlutWalk, and if I can I will be there in London; if not… I shall be supporting from the sidelines.

International Anti-Street Harassment Day

If you didn’t know it, today is International Anti-Street Harassment Day. I can’t take part in it physically as this is the first year and as is to be expected, there’s not much going on near me, so I thought I’d participate the best way I know how!

What is ‘street harassment’?

Street harassment is a piece of the huge jigsaw that is rape culture and it happens to loads of women everywhere, every single day. I don’t think the term ‘street’ is literal (or at least it isn’t to me); more a reference to generally being out and about in public places. It can happen in the street, but it can also happen in clubs, pubs, at house parties, at concerts, or in the shops. It’s where any form of harassment is carried out – though the focus of Anti-Street Harassment Day tends to be sexual harassment. So you’ve got inappropriate touching, being shouted at, being stalked, and the list goes on.

It’s a feminist thing, but men are not excluded

On IWD, a lot of men chimed up ‘what about us?!’ and not only is there an International Men’s Day for you, but you’ll find that concepts in feminism – even rape culture and street harassment – can apply to men too. As an example, I went out clubbing with my housemates to a gay bar. My male housemate was accosted in the toilets by a gay man who wanted him to keep the toilet door open so he could see. When politely told no, the man went to the cubicle next door, pulled himself up in between the two cubicles and confronted him again. Luckily, he didn’t see anything, and my housemate was polite and told him to go away. Yet for the rest of the night, every time he went to the toilets, he was followed by the same man. Eventually, he decided he would go into the ladies’ toilets (for the club’s rules stated that men were allowed in the womens’ toilets but not the other way round) and ‘pretend to be gay’ in order to get away with being there.

He had to change his behaviour in order to avoid being harassed – and this is exactly the conundrum I and many other women are faced with every single time we go out. We want to look good, but we need to make sure that we don’t look so good that we’re ripe for the taking. If we wear a low-cut top, short skirt or anything slightly more revealing than a nun’s habit, we are to expect to be ogled and shouted at, maybe even approached, by men who think that they somehow have the right to say or do anything to a woman if they see enough flesh.

Street harassment is essentially ‘unwanted attention’

For as long as I’ve had a social life, I’ve been harassed by men when I’ve been out; even just walking along the street. One of my first memories of this is when I was about 14. I was walking home in my school uniform minding my own business. I don’t think I had an MP3 player then (nowadays I am never seen without one, because it works as a barrier to stop people from talking to me) so I could hear every single word. Three young black men who were standing on the other side of the road to me, or walking along, noticed me and started calling me a “white prostitute”, “slag”, “whore”, “fucking white bitch” and other variations; you name it, I was called it.

And for what? Walking home. In a school uniform. By this time I was past any shops that I could walk into, so I had no choice but to carry on, trying not to react to promote further shouting, or worse. I then realised that they were following me. My heart was racing, but all I could think was that if I could just make it home, I’d be safe. I got home okay, but they had followed me, right up to my doorstep, and rang on the doorbell. I remember crouching on the floor, hiding under the door window, hoping that they would get bored and go away. They did, eventually. But I refused to walk home alone from school after that, and for a few weeks I lived in fear that now they knew where I lived, they would come back.

Of course, that is probably an exceptional occurrence. You’d think, anyway. The most recent form of harassment I had was in Brighton at a Hurts gig. I’ll keep it short – there was a man stood behind me, crotch touching bum, breathing down my neck. He was much taller and of a bigger build than me and all of my friends, and when I politely asked him to move backwards he started shouting incoherently at me. I thought he was going to physically hurt me. Is it really that unreasonable to expect personal space when you’re a woman?

More subtle forms of harassment take place on a daily basis. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been touched, grabbed, or approached in an aggressive way by men, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. These are just a couple of my stories. If you want to find out more, there’s more information on street harassment at the Stop Street Harassment website.