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.

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.