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It’s saturday night and I’m all confessional-y

Guest: Aishwarya

I recently visited a friend in Hyderabad. A couple of hours after I’d arrived we decided to walk to a nearby restaurant for dinner (this was evening. Eight-ish.) and we were walking along, talking about literature or gender or football or something when a man zoomed past us on his motorbike, going in the same direction as we were. As he passed us, he reached out a hand behind him, grabbed by breast, let go, and went off. Ros was looking at something in the other direction so she hadn’t seen him.

That’s the boring part. The interesting, scary bit is my complete lack of a reaction. Ros hadn’t seen it, and for some reason I didn’t bring it up. I did nothing, I didn’t run after him and yell or swear or anything. I turned to a friend and continued a normal conversation and did it so convincingly that I don’t think she even noticed anything wrong.

And this is what really scares me most about the kind of harassment that one faces for being female in public. I worry that I’ve gotten used to it because I can just shrug it off, or if I’m a bad feminist for just letting it go and not doing more. I need to fix this.

26 thoughts on It’s saturday night and I’m all confessional-y

  1. I had the exact same thing happen to me just a few weeks ago (only in a bar, not on the street) and had the exact same reaction – didn’t slap him, didn’t go ask the bouncer or one of the bartenders (all of whom I know, and whom I know would side with me on just my word) to kick him out, didn’t even mention it to my boyfriend until an hour or so later, when the guy did get thrown out for continuing his obnoxious, grabby behavior.

    And then I got pissed – at him, at myself, at the world – for the fact that this shit is so goddamn commonplace that it’s not even worth mentioning, “by the way, that dude just groped me.”

    So it’s not just you, I guess is what I’m saying.

  2. I don’t think anyone’s judging you as a “bad feminist” has anything to do with anything. I do think there are many times in a woman’s life when her righteous anger, as opposed to her tendency to freeze up because she’s been raised to be “nice,” can literally save her life.

    Your life wasn’t in danger here, but one day it might be. Will doing nothing be the appropriate reaction then? It might. Will the decision to fight be the right reaction? It might, too.

    But get angry. Whether you choose to act on that feeling or not is up to you, but let yourself get good and fricking angry that anyone felt he had the right to do this to you. It may save your life one day when someone wants your car, your purse, your body, or your life. I believe it is better to act from a position of clear-headed anger than from one of numbness and powerlessness.
    I hope I make some kind of sense here. I would not have, say, tried to knock this guy off his bike, because in the situation as you describe it that would not have been constructive. But ye gods I would have been angry, angry, angry. I hope I never do, but I may well need that anger someday.

  3. Unfortunately harassment happens so often that if women got worked up into a righteous anger every single time we got harassed, our blood pressure would get high enough to cause our heads to explode. I think Laurel has a good point and I’m all in favor of women feeling & expressing anger at our own individual treatment & that of other women. It’s good that you’re questioning it, but sometimes, it’s ok to sit out a fight & save some energy for another day. It’s enough to make one wish Thelma & Louise were real. I’d so like to make a sci fi movie where they come back from the dead & kick some ass.

  4. This reminds me a little of a terrible experience I had in high school. One scene in a school play required a male student to catch me as I fell backward into his arms. The first time I fell, he caught me by the chest rather than the waist. I was sure it was an accident, so I just asked him to try and catch me lower. Two, three, four times we ran the scene and EVERY time his hands ended up on my breasts. He was applying a fair amount of pressure, too, because they were getting sore.

    I felt completely desperate; he was doing this in front of the entire cast and the director and nobody was doing anything! Finally I said out loud that I just couldn’t deal with him touching me that way. The director began a series of non-apologies on his behalf and seemed more upset with ME for acknowledging that anything was wrong.

    She assigned another student to help support my body as I fell back so he wouldn’t have to support my full weight. Even as the second student was able to catch me at my middle, the first one continued to grab my chest. My entire body was on edge, and I blew a fuse when he touched me the last time. I slapped, kicked, and yelled at him to GET OFF ME NOW. The director looked astonished. Everyone was looking at me. I was ashamed, and I tried to apologize. I left the run-through early and cried in the car on my way home.

    When I think about it now, what I did was more than justified. I should have done something about it a lot earlier. The reaction I got – shock at the idea that I would cause a scene just for being touched without my consent – is one reason that I think many women (1) instinctively hide or downplay these incidents and (2) feel shame for being the victim of something that absolutely wasn’t their fault.

  5. Joy, absolutely you did the right thing. If it had happened just the one time, then it’s understandable you would have seen it as an accident, which it probably would have been. But multiple times? No accident there.

  6. I just don’t get the groping thing. I really don’t. Even my non-feminist father taught me that you just don’t do that kind of thing. If I’d have ever groped a woman like that and she slapped me, his response would have been, “What did you expect? Serves you right. Don’t do it again.”

  7. Definitely you don’t need to lump “bad feminist” on top of everything else. You react how you react. There’s no need to work up an emotional reaction that you didn’t have (I learned about that the hard way, and I’m still learning it).

    and yeah, i remember that weird sort of “wha?” reaction when I was a teenager walking home and some guy was riding a bike past me and he “groped,” but it happened so quickly…it was like, he stuck out his hand, -thwack-, it glanced off my breast, he rode on. i just wasn’t sure -how- to react or feel, except for i hurried home in case he came back. it was…disturbing. but not in a o my GOD i’m traumatized for LIFE sort of way, just sort of…what? i…what? why?…

  8. oh, and the thing about yelling or swearing is–I’m not necessarily sure what that helps. I mean, for whose benefit? Yours? But you didn’t want to (or did you?) The guy? He was long gone. Your friend?

    It can be satisfying to do that. It can be risky, too. Once I was with a friend at a bus stop (in France) and some drunk guy lurched up, squeezed himself between us on the bench, and groped each of our thighs. We got up immediately; he didn’t follow. I think it was mostly the smirk on his face that made me snap,

    “Espece de cochon!”

    The smirk kind of -wiped- off his face, which was gratifying. But then he lumbered up and started to head toward us. So we fled. Ducked into a nearby store and waited for him to stumble-run past. When the coast was clear, we went back to the bus stop.

    Yeah, I dunno. A friend tells me about a friend of -his- who apparently beat the living crap out of three guys who started to harass her on the street, which sounds sort of awesome, if overkill, but also very, “do not try this at home,” unless you -really- know what you’re doing.

  9. It’s partly denial, too, isn’t it? At least for me…I don’t want to deal with it, many times, so I try to ignore it. Because then I have to summon up energy and rage, and deal with the mfucker who pulled whatever he pulled, and…hey I’m out with friends, or running errands, and I just..don’t want to deal.

    That’s not an excuse. But hey, battle fatigue is real, and some days, I have trouble going back into battle.

  10. It might take you a while to process whatever it is you’re feeling. Be easy on yourself.

  11. Your reaction does not make you a bad feminist.

    Like those before me have said, your reaction is the norm. I do believe is has to do with women always being told to be “nice”. I mean, who wants to cause a stink in public and have everyone watching and know what happened (self-shaming)?

    I think it also has to do with the fact that is just an expected consequence of being a woman in public. I hate the fact that after so many of these experiences, I almost always immediately distrustful of any male stranger that approaches me.

    So much of it is excused as “boys being boys”…well, I know how you feel and after so many times of me being angry at my lack of reaction, I’ve resolved to never shrug it off or be silent about it again. No one’s going to make me feel that way again! As if I shouldn’t be walking about for the double chromosomes I carry.

    I’ve taken to doing some HollaBack activities. Even if I don’t send the pictures in, it makes me feel less powerless. I am not letting them get away with it. I feel I am doing something.

    Uhm, I mean, I feel very strongly about this issue.

  12. Looks like I’m going to start carrying a gun. I have no problem shooting someone if they think they have a right to touch me. Aim for those nasty fingers.

    Ok, that was just a fantasy, but I would seriously have to take down a name or a license plate or wallop someone in the face. Or I’d have a game of grab and yank with his little wank.

  13. The kind of guys who do this make me laugh, sometimes (and not in a good way).

    I remember so many guys who, having groped me or my friends, were really shocked and offended that we got angry with them.

    Strangely enough, though, when a particularly wonderful, male friend illustrated our point by groping them back a little later, they didn’t seem to get the joke…

    I can’t imagine why, I mean, it’s just a bit of fun, right?

  14. Or I’d have a game of grab and yank with his little wank

    This from my perspective is probably the best response. But then I believe individual instant repsonse is always the best. Most of these jerks do not embarass or if they do it instantly converts to anger. Instant physical response that is non embarrassing to the perpetrator for a FIRST offense is in my mind the best. Second offense deserves full treatment.

    Steve

  15. To add to the points Joy & BelleDame have made,

    1) yes, it is amazing how we are thought in the wrong for speaking up/defending ourselves. In jr. high, there was a guy who used his drumsticks to poke girls in the butt. You’d be in the middle of class, minding your own damn business & he’d poke you. Teachers didn’t do anything about it, such as take his drumsticks away. My friend jabbed him with a pencil. She was sent to the dean for that. I hit him with a bookstrap and caught him with the metal edge. When he yelled out, the teacher started reprimanding me for hitting him. But when she found out why, she laughed & said we were just like her kids. But you know what? He never bothered either of us again while he repeatedly poked the other girls.

    2) Standing up can be dangerous as BelleDame points out. Some friends & I were in a group & felt brave so we cursed at some guys harassing us. They followed our car & tried to run us off the road.

    3) I was waiting in the ferry terminal when some guy went up to a woman & put his arms around her. I though they knew each other until I heard her saying “Get the f**k off me”. She moved away from him. He moved closer to her and said “what are you going to do about it?” The only people out of hundreds in the terminal to get involved were me (calling the police & pointing the guy out to the police on the boat), her friend and another bystander (also helped point the guy out). Everyone else just stood there watching. And even if the police couldn’t arrest him, they should’ve taken him off the boat for questioning & made him miss the boat. Instead, they just made him apologize to her (& this was after he denied it several times with witnesses backing her up). Interesting how Mr. Brave & Macho started looking scared when the cop was questioning him. Freakin’ cowards harass women.

    The only general rule I’d say anyone should follow for harassment is don’t go to your home/workplace because then it’s easier for the harasser to see where you live/work. Go to a public place for help. Or call someone you know for help. I was being followed off the bus once by a guy who said, “you’re so beautiful” and kept slowing down/speeding up to follow me. I was pretty scared and didn’t want him to see where I live, so I stopped at a pay phone. I didn’t know if the police could do anything, so I just dialed my own voice mail and coincidentally, a big guy happened to come to the pay phone from a nearby apt. & asked me if he could use the phone. The follower saw him & took off faster than I thought humanly possible. Shortly thereafter, I broke down & bought a cell phone, which I’d been avoiding.

  16. I wish more women would just kill in cold blood men who do this. Put a damper on things, I think.

    When is the revolution?

  19. You know, just reading about it sounded so familiar to me, reaction and all. The hatred of women is just so pervasive—and yet invisible, because we’re not supposed to count.

  20. I’m going to grab the balls (hard) of any man who tries it in future. I’ll probably get smacked or punched, but it will be worth it.

  23. yeah, “Eve Teasing” sounds so much more…whimsical and benign than “harassment,” somehow.

    same ol’ shit though, i expect.

  24. Joy your story reminded me a little of a improv comedy group I saw in DC. Small theater, small group.

    The group was doing a scene and suddenly one of the male actors (who was standing behind a female actor) put his hands full on her breasts. Right in front of the audience. For a good while.

    I remember it caught the attention of myself and my friends. The *only* explaination that maybe we could devise was perhaps the pair were dating. It was just so obvious and yet the scene continued as if it was “okay.”

  26. Bunny –

    I remember so many guys who, having groped me or my friends, were really shocked and offended that we got angry with them.

    I’ve had that kind of response when I’ve confronted street harassers. It’s like they have no idea that their behaviour is unacceptable.

    I had one guy follow me half way home from a bar, making a nuisance out of himself. The next time I went back to that bar he approached the friend I was with to tell her how much I had scared him by saying no when he asked for my phone number. Grr.

    And Aishwarya, like everyone else has said, your reaction by no means make you a bad feminist. The groper’s the bad guy in this situation.

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