She Who Shall Be Named

To mark International Anti-Street Harassment Week, we are writing about our experiences of street harassment. For posts by Anouchka, Lola, rashné, Simi, Steph and Charmaine please see NYE, 'Are you even black?', Refusal(S): Street Harassment in Bombay... Under 'Western' Eyes, Something Happened, 'You make me happy' and Once bitten; twice, and you're nicked.

TRIGGER WARNING

I met Zaria “Cinderella” Harris at the queer youth center I used to attend in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. She like many other youth activists at JASMYN was truly committed to extending the safe space that was so persistently advocated for beyond the walls of the JASMYN house and into the larger Jacksonville community. Usually, there was an unspoken rule that if anyone left the JASMYN house to run an errand, one should bring a buddy along to make the journey safer. During my buddy walks with Zaria and several other trans women, it would never fail that someone in need of filling their transphobic transgressions for the day would have something offensive to say. I witnessed all too often the way that my friend was the subject of chilling stares, grade school-esque whispers, the target of transmysogynistic retorts, or worst of all, threatened with violence.

Unfortunately, these types of offences are something that trans women encounter on a daily basis in the U.S. According to a 2011 report by the National Center for Transgender Equality, transgender people are the most vulnerable targets of violence and discrimination. There is a direct relationship of transphobia to the violence that is happening in our communities. There are countless incidents of trans women being misgendered, brutally attacked, and even murdered in the U.S. because of their gender identity or gender presentations. These types of egregious acts are happening in the streets of major cities like NY, Baltimore, D.C., and Chicago. An equally disturbing reality is that more often than not, there is an overwhelming amount of invisibility to these occurrences. There are usually no vigils held in remembrance to the loss of a life, no floods of new stories, or public outcry. It is a sad and heartbreaking reality. Just this month, 18-year-old Bianca Feliciano of Cicero, Illinois was profiled as a prostitute, physically threatened, verbally assaulted, and subsequently arrested by two police officers because of her gender identity. Chrissy Polis of Baltimore, Maryland was physically attacked by two McDonald’s employees while attempting to use the restaurant restroom. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the attack was recorded and posted on Youtube. On Feb. 2, a trans woman was stabbed to death while waiting at a bus stop in D.C. Yes, the incident was covered in the news; however, several media outlets used transphobic language when referring to Deoni Jones.

When incidents such as the above cases happen and nothing is done about, it sends a message that this type of violence is acceptable. It sends a message that trans women are not worthy of having basic human rights protections. No trans woman should ever be gawked at, misgendered, threatened with violence, or brutally murdered because of her gender presentation or gender identity. Any inkling of this type of invasive, oppressive, and violent behavior must be checked. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want in any way to paint a picture of trans women as helpless victims incapable of holding their own. I simply want to call out to the need for solidarity in truly having our trans sister’s backs with greater hopes that it will counter the needless violence which is connected to the pervasive transphobia in our communities. It’s time for the silence and violence to end. No trans woman should have to walk down the streets with fear, terror, and anxiety in her heart that she will be a target or nameless victim.

In the spirit of sisterhood, I would like to dedicate this post to my dear friend Zaria “Cinderella” Harris, a fierce and beautiful soul who was tragically killed in Miami in 2011 at the age of 25. I mention this incident not only because I want the name and memory of Zaria to live on, but also because all too often, the violent and hateful verbal and physical attacks of trans women go unnoticed.

- Jardyn Lake

Once bitten; twice and you’re nicked

To mark International Anti-Street Harassment Week, we are writing about our experiences of street harassment.

The walk home from school was short, and the strip of shops with the little green on the way was even shorter.

But it petrified me.

There was a bench just on the green, and two or three men (old men) would sit all afternoon, drink cans of beer and shout absurdities at little girls walking by. ‘Hello sweetheart’, ‘you’re beautiful’ etc etc.

But it wasn’t their words, it was that feeling of being watched that upset me. The gaze searing into my skin, my back, my legs, my bum, my breasts. It weighed so heavy on me.

I changed my route.

But they were everywhere. Men everywhere staring at me, saying things, making me feel obliged to hide, or respond faintly, in the hope that it would just go away.

I was only eight or nine years old, and it hasn’t let up since. I have felt real fear so many times I can’t remember, but some of them I can. I remember telling men my age (‘but I’m 13, but I’m 14, but I’m 12 YEARS OLD. TWELVE!’) and it never seemed to matter. Aaliyah’s hit tune ‘Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number’ was the bane of my life. It gave these lecherous men the fuel they needed, fully sanctioned paedophilic harassment. But my friends and I were strong, when I reflect on it, we batted them all off and would walk away saying ‘nonce’, ‘paedophile’ and laugh at how sad these men were, pitying their wives, glad we weren’t their daughters.

We didn’t really think about it being a crime. It was a daily thing, two or three times daily, sometimes hourly. On the way to school, to college, to the shop, in the shop, in the bar, on the way to the loo – why do some men wait outside the women’s toilet, that’s not attractive, is it? Ok, actually, I know why. You get to ogle ALL of the girls in the club that way.

Anyway, the last time a man thought he deserved my number for talking to me when I hadn’t requested it, sent no signal, was just walking down the street was within the last seven days, and there have been some days this week that I haven’t left the house because I’ve been kinda busy. So t hat’s very telling.

I usually manage to just pretend I didn’t hear anything, but on one occasion I couldn’t. I had to stop and listen. I had to look him in the face, in the eyes. I had to stand there and do what he said. And I hated him for it. On my way to university, late evening, heavy bags, dashing from one platform to another on the Underground, an Underground worker spotted me and gave me That Look. He motioned to me, maybe he said something like ‘hello’, but, I’m running for my train, it’s in sight, I don’t have time, so I did the usual see-no-evil-hear-no-evil, but when he clocked that I was ignoring him he called me up on it. ‘Hey, hey. STOP! I want to see your ticket’.

What? What? Now? I couldn’t believe it. I pretended I couldn’t see him, I pretended I couldn’t hear, but he shouted louder and people could hear. I had a valid ticket, but I stopped. He sauntered up to me, spoke slowly, requested to see my ticket, inspected it on one side, and then on the other. Then when he was sure that my train had gone, just as it had pulled off he said ‘next time, stop immediately when you are called’. And with that he turned and left, triumphant.

I missed my train back to uni, so I turned away and went back to my parents eaten up with rage chewed up by that complete abuse of power that I felt I could do nothing about. Oh, the frustration! Oh the fury! The kind of feeling that drives one to think those intrusive thoughts we are ashamed of – you know, BAAAAD thoughts.

That’s what some men do to me.

Now I know that if a man consistently harasses me, on the street, on the Underground, on my way to or from my destination (home, school, work, shopping), wherever. If he does it twice and I have evidence (witnesses, CCTV, anything that can show he has harassed me on two or more occasions) he is committing a crime that I can push for prosecution for quite easily under the Protection from Harassment Act, 1997.

Once bitten, but twice and he’s nicked (and an arrest, jail and fine could be on the cards).

That’s how I’ll live my life from now on.

Charmaine

First discovering you are pregnant

This is the first in a series of posts by Yasmin, a pregnant feminist who will be sharing her experiences of pregnancy with us, in the hope that she is not alone in her thinking! This blog originally appeared on The F Word.

When I first discovered I was pregnant, I was hit with an overwhelming sense of shock. I am 32 this year but in no way felt ready to become a mother. For years, I had resisted all 'innocent' remarks about the fact that I continued to remain childless (childfree!) despite having been with my partner for nearly 8 years. Members of my family would talk about this openly and, when friends became pregnant, they would assure me that I too would be overcome with joy at this most 'beautiful' of moments.

The belief, particularly when you are my age, is that you should be grateful that you can still conceive. This, however, was not how I felt. I worried about the loss of freedom, but when I voiced this I was quickly dismissed. 'You can't be young forever!' 'It'll be fine once the baby gets here'. I resented the assumption that by critically considering the far-reaching consequences of this momentous event, I was necessarily being selfish, Western, in my family's eyes. Though my shock subsided and was later replaced with an excitement about what would be happening to me, I have not lost the underlying sense of fear.

This, I guess, was my first experience of the ways in which pregnant women become a body other than their own. People come to not hear you as an individual; rather, they would prefer to see you as a representation of pregnant WOMAN. A special identity to which you are supposed to readily subsume the one you have painstakingly been constructing over the last 31 years!

Whatever the case, you are not really given a space to voice your fears and concerns because this is supposed to be a time of great joy and happiness. Should you experience joy yet have this tinged with worry and sadness at the loss of your former self, this is frowned upon. Indeed, people squirm in your presence because the pattern of pregnant woman conversation is not following its usual and 'natural' course.

This early pathologising of what to me seems one of many, logical reactions to pregnancy signals, as I see it, the ways in which pregnant women are from the very beginning, public property. If you do not instantly feel maternal then something is inherently wrong. You cannot possibly want or feel something different to the patriarchal construction of all women as aspirant mothers.

And what a mother should be is anything but critical of the process and all that it entails. At my first antenatal appointment, the one in which you are given the picture of your baby, I was 'able to find something to complain about' because, I am an 'angry feminist' whose rational thinking brain has long since gone out of the window. Apparently, I should not have been so 'put out' by the fact that the instructional videos aired for expectant parents continuously referred to the baby as HE. When I mentioned this to a pregnant friend I was made to feel like this was no time for my feminist gripes, I was pregnant and should be damn happy about it too!

How, I wondered, was the fact that I was pregnant supposed to act as a buffer to my feminist ideals? How could this old friend, who knows exactly how important feminism is to me, blithely tell me to discount my indignation? Well, the answer was simple; pregnancy is not a time for critical reflection about gender. In fact, it is the point at which you return to your natural and instinctual self. Why, at this point, be critical of the fact that boys are presented as the human default? It is just harmless, nothing to be worried about. As though this is not in some way related to the sad reality which has millions of female foetuses selectively aborted. Nothing can or should derail my 100% mirth at being part of the 'special club'!

"You make me happy"

To mark International Anti-Street Harassment Week, we are writing about our experiences of street harassment. For posts by Anouchka, Lola, rashné and Simi, please see NYE, 'Are you even black?', Refusal(S): Street Harassment in Bombay... Under 'Western' Eyes and Something Happened

TRIGGER WARNING

When I was asked to write this post for Street Harassment Week I thought it was an impossible task because in my mind I had never experienced street harassment. You see, I live in my own little world and generally spend my time skipping through the streets of London with a smile on my face and a Pixies song in my head (it’s Tame at the moment). While this is an enjoyable experience I realised I probably wasn’t seeing the world for what it really is. Lo and behold when I went over my many repressed memories I realised that I had been a victim of street harassment.

One day when I was on my lunch break, walking through the banker-polluted streets of Farringdon, I passed the crossrail construction site. There were two builders standing outside and when I walked towards them one guy opened up his arms, smiled broadly and said to me, “You make me happy”. I should have thought of a good comeback or questioned him about why he felt it necessary to say that to me but being my naturally cold self I just ignored him and walked past.

You’re probably thinking that wasn’t a particularly dramatic or hurtful experience. As he said I made him happy and, really, if all I had accomplished in one day was to make someone happy then I’d be pretty proud but we have to think about the privilege behind the act. Even though masked in a friendly manner it is an egotistical act, born out of misogyny, which makes a man think a woman needs to know that he finds her physically attractive. It will make her day when she hears she has nice tits. Just because something is hidden in friendliness, jokes or banter does not mean it cannot be vicious.

The worst part is that I can’t even recall half the times someone has called out to me on the street because it has become so normalised in my mind. It could have happened ten times. It could have happened 100 times, I can’t recall, and if you can’t recall what was wrong it makes it harder to see it the next time. This is why initiatives like Street Harassment Week are so important because it gives women time and space to think about what happened to them and gives them the courage they need to fight back in the future.

- Steph Phillips

Something happened

To mark International Anti-Street Harassment Week, we are writing about our experiences of street harassment. For posts by Anouchka, Lola and rashné, please see NYE, 'Are you even black?' and Refusal(S): Street Harassment in Bombay... Under 'Western' Eyes

TRIGGER WARNING

A man followed me from the tube one winter’s evening in 2005. He was white, middle-aged, non-descript. I had noticed him on the train staring at me. When I got off at my stop, he suddenly darted off the train as the doors closed. It seemed spur of the moment, that it was not his intended stop. As I walked up the stairs, I turned twice and saw him still staring at me, now furtively. I began to wonder if he could be following me. Most people head right, to nearby houses, when they exit the tube station, but my route was left, a few yards down a depopulated stretch of a major road before turning on to quiet backstreets. When I exited the station, I saw that the man had not veered right with the crowd but was still behind me. I slowed to a virtual halt to let him pass by. He did, then stopped steps ahead and turned back to me, as if waiting. After some seconds, he continued walking so I did too.

Now certain that this man was following me and now petrified to walk home, I decided to wait at a bus stop right by the station where, fortunately, there were a few other people. I also called my house and a male friend there jumped on a bicycle to come and get me. The man from the tube remained a few paces away, looking at me huddling as close to the people at the bus stop as I possibly could. After some minutes, he shrugged at me as if to say “oh well,” then casually sauntered away. So, yes, not even a word was spoken... yet I have possibly never been so scared. Who was he? Why was he following me? What did he want? If I walked home, would he stalk me down my quiet route? If I got on a bus, would he also? How would I then shake him off? Where would it all end?

Another man – young and black this time – followed me one evening earlier this month. We had made eye contact as I crossed a busy road toward him, so he presumed to come after me, tap on my shoulder and ‘compliment’ my appearance. I put these two experiences and my countless daily others like them here, in Nigeria, in America, in South Africa, on a continuum of sexual harassment and ultimately violence. Their structural logic is that women and their bodies are always available to men, so they can come after us as they like. The logic follows that if male strangers stop you on the street with a supposedly nice remark or a whistle or a rude catcall, or even if they shadow you from the tube but soon tire of it, count yourself lucky, “nothing happened.” No. I will not accept that my peace and safety as I walk down the street are contingent on some unknown man’s approach.

- Simidele Dosekun

Refusal(S): Street Harassment in Bombay… Under ‘Western’ Eyes*

To mark International Anti-Street Harassment Week, we are writing about our experiences of street harassment. For posts by Anouchka and Lola, please see NYE and 'Are you even black?'

TRIGGER WARNING

On a recent trip back home, I was walking around the neighborhood with a friend, catching-up on the various goings-on in Bombay. There was nothing particularly unusual about this stroll – it was part of the routine growing-up, and a ritual, now, on my visits back. The nights in my neighborhood are dimly lit, but the streets feel familiar, even as you walk past numerous unfamiliar faces.

On this particular evening, as I chatted to my friend, I noticed a young man walking towards us. A few seconds later, he had cupped me and was well on his escape. I yelled a curse and began chasing after him. A few steps later, I had stopped, recognizing its futility.

The odd thing is, I saw this coming. Having grown up in Bombay, my instincts told me something was up when I noticed his approach. But having spent too many years away, I had let my reflexes slacken.

Verbal harassment – whether in Bombay, London, or the States – is not at all an uncommon experience. Most often I mutter ‘idiot’ or ‘asshole’ and keep moving. Physical harassment though, while not unfamiliar, is a more intense and lingering experience. The humiliation that follows is not merely an effect of corporeal shame – what is it about my body that provokes such behavior? – but more so of (a perceived) mental weakness – how could I let this happen to me… again? How could I let him run away… again? Why have I not learned to protect myself… still?

Past this humiliation lies aggravating confusion – an effect of the intellectual work that follows. I know that, had I kept screaming and running after the man, it would probably have brought out some of the younger folks that hang out in the area. A couple of young kids on bikes would probably have been happy to chase after the guy and perhaps give him a good beating. But that is precisely the problem. Had anyone from the neighborhood gotten involved, I believe that the ‘punishment’ meted out would not merely have been for the violating act but also perhaps because of who the perpetrator was – a young, most likely working class man, an ethnically lesser other.

We know that middle-class masculinities are often performed on the backs – literally and figuratively – of working-class men. I know the violence done to me. But I can also guess at the violence that the perpetrator might have been subjected to. The two are not mutually exclusive, but they appear irreconcilable. I refuse to enable some perverse performance of ethno-class masculinity, or ethno-classism in general, under the guise of redressing sexist or misogynistic behavior. What, then, is it to ‘justly’ hold the perpetrator accountable, without reproducing various forms of ethnic and class prejudices?

This, for me, is not a purely theoretically issue… or distraction. Indeed, speaking (or writing) of such issues is itself a complex task. As a Third World woman residing in the West, I am acutely conscious of the pathologization of Third World cultures. Much of this occurs through the paradigm of man=oppressor/woman=victim. I reject any attempt to deny the pervasiveness of patriarchy, and its often violent manifestations, in our communities – I have nothing against ‘airing dirty laundry’. Yet, I am equally wary of the reproduction of a colonial/racial logic in confronting the ‘social ills’ of Third World cultures – whether they be the Indian ‘epidemic’ of eve-teasing or the practices of genital cutting and ‘honor killing’. (This applies as much to ethnic and class structures within Third World communities/societies, as it does to the East-West/North-South power structures.)

What is at stake here is (stereotyped) representations of people of color. My issue with stereotypes is not purely about content, per se, but the power that they wield in producing generalized ‘truths’ – truths that permit a range of responses from reifications of dominant masculinities (and femininities), as I described above, to the militarization of ‘social justice’, as evidenced most recently in the KONY2012 campaign.

There is no doubt that street harassment is a huge issue in India. In fact, even in London, when I walk past South Asian men, I pray that they do not say anything, or behave in anyway, that confirms their stereotyped images. Yet, again, my anxieties are an effect not so much of their (potential) behavior as of the gaze they/we are subject to.

I could catalogue here all my experiences of street harassment – from men about my school, exposing themselves, to the gropes, smacks, and never-ending cat-calls. Yet, to recount these in any detail would seem to (re)produce a spectacle which offers emotive/affective power to already existent representations. I don’t believe such engagements to be politically or ethically productive – and, personally, I find them quite disempowering. Instead, what concerns me more, are the terms upon/through which we develop such engagements. That is, if we are to speak of patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, then let’s do so with an eye to racial and colonial power… and our consequent gaze… as well.

I am a bit tired of being asked told how bad things are in India – whether it is a feminist of color in the States who could never imagine herself in a place like Bombay because all the touching would just make her so mad, or the white British guy who informed me (with a pat on my back, no less…) that I should visit Scandinavia because then I’d see that patriarchy isn’t really universal. I am frustrated at attempts to hierarchize subjugation and violence; sickened by gestures that (re)position black and brown folks, men especially, as yet awaiting some form of moral enlightenment. That is the reproduction of the colonial, and I cannot stand (for) it.

It may seem odd, perhaps, that a post (by a woman) on street-harassment (primarily enacted by men) appears invested in the recuperation of the male figure. But recuperation is not the same as protection. I have no desire to ‘protect’ eve-teasers in Bombay from accusations of sexism, misogyny or patriarchy. But equally, even as I pose such critiques, I have no desire to pander to, or satisfy, a colonial/racial gaze. Thus, for me, any recuperative gesture is also, and precisely, a refusal. A thick refusal, in fact, of all that, ultimately, has been imposed upon me.

* I borrow part of this title from Chandra Mohanty’s essay (1988) ‘Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse’ (Feminist Review, No. 30). Also, I use the term Western to describe contemporary racial/colonial logic that is not specific to the geo-political ‘West’ but rather is reiterated and performed across a global elite, however described.

- rashné limki

'Are you even black?'

To mark International Anti-Street Harassment Week, we are writing about our experiences of street harassment. Yesterday, Anouchka wrote about her experiences on NYE.

TRIGGER WARNING

As I'm sure many of the other posts on this blog will say, street harassment is something as a woman you become, sadly, very accustomed to. The most memorable however took place when I was on a three month holiday with a friend whose family lived in Tokyo.

Each day, after teaching my English classes, I would go on to meet two of my friends working as hostesses in Tokyo's numerous hostess bars. The time would usually be anywhere from 11pm onwards. And, every night, I would walk past a nightclub with a group of hard faced bouncers weeding out the potential clientele.

Each night as I would walk past , without fail, one of them would say something along the lines of 'hey, sister'. My response would always be to continue ahead. At first I was flattered. Here I was in an amazing city across the world, where no one seemed to notice me apart from these cool looking ADULT men. By virtue of being migrant workers, it seemed that they were adventurers just like me, daring to go somewhere new and different. I had respect for these men because I felt that I knew something of their struggle. I didn't respond because I was shy and didn't know how to even begin a dialogue, let's face it, life is not what it is made out to be in American TV movies.

Once the novelty of this wore off and, it did very quickly, I started to get annoyed that that they refused to accept my silence as a sign that I wasn't interested. Before reaching the stretch that they would be standing on, I would brace myself for the cat calls. Ignoring them meant that there was now a bitter tone to their usual comments and they would look at me as though I was something off. Soon I began to walk on the other side of the street, to avoid them altogether.

One night I happened to be walking with one of my friends on her night off. Unaware that there was a problem with the side of road our usual hangout was on, she assumed that this was our easiest route. I felt too awkward to go into a long explanation of what seemed to be nothing. After all, it was only some guys expressing how they thought I was attractive, I should have been flattered not intimidated. As we came along to the bouncers the usual calling out began. I continued my conversation with my friend, looking at her or straight ahead. Before we had gone out of hearing range, I heard one shout out 'are you even black?'

It may seem like an insignificant comment that I should have been smart enough and strong enough to dismiss. But it was not. I had grown up the only black girl on my street, in my school, a handful of the ones at my uni. For me, this comment and my sense of anger and hurt at it has taken up a lot of my time. Some of it good. My sense of being expected to 'act black' by both white and black people became properly crystallised at that moment. It was something I had spent much of my late teens thinking about. How do you act black? In this case my blackness was directly related to the fact that these handful of black men felt a sense of ownership towards me that I obviously did not share.

For all it's distinctive qualities, my street harassment story is ridiculously prototypical. Men, strange men, feel and believe they have a right to your body, to attempt to own it with their whistles, stares and words. When their sense of entitlement is challenged you are made to feel as though there is something deviant about withholding the correct complying response. You become the problem. An uppity woman who thinks she is better than she actually is. It is, yet another, daily form of violence against women.

- Lola Okolosie