This is cross posted with permission from Saniya M. Ali’s blog.
I’ve had to face street harassment on a regular basis since the age of 11. The lewd stares, the cat calls, the whistling, a gang of whispering men turning around and smirking at me, a group of boys coming up to my parked car to drop their number, the not-so-accidental graze a sweaty man would make against me in a crowded market…
I thought I’d seen it all. I thought that this was as bad as it would get for me. Begrudgingly, I had even come to accept it as a collateral damage to my outings. Every time it would annoy me, every time I would ignore it and carry on. So it struck me with surprise that I could come across something that I wasn’t able to brush off.
So here we are, my three girlfriends and I at our favourite burger place for dinner near my university. Our orders arrive and we are busy burying ourselves into food after an entire day of starving. The place is filled with people and I am halfway done with my food when I notice a man sitting in the opposite booth staring at me. He is accompanied by a friend; they must be in their early to mid-thirties. I feel uncomfortable with the way he’s looking at me and I use one of my friends, who is sitting opposite to me with her back to the Staring Man, to shift out of his line of sight. I tell her about the Staring Man and instruct her not to move from her place.
Barely 10 seconds later, he slides to the other end of the booth to continue his leering. I shift again to avoid being ogled at. This is when it starts to annoy me.
A**hole.
I curse him silently, wishing I had the guts to go up to him and tell him to stop. I remembered reading online that asking the harasser to end his behaviour by spelling it out to him may help put a stop to it.
But this is Pakistan. I’m not supposed to talk to a strange man! Will it work? Or will he interpret it in the opposite way? What if it gets worse than just staring?
I don’t have long with my thoughts. Staring Man stands up and gives me a long stare with that eerie smirk of his. I immediately bow my head to cover my face with my open hair. I feel like I must shield myself. I must prove an obstacle to his game. He walks away to get drinks and comes back. I keep my head down.
My friend asks if I want to switch places so that my back is towards him. I say no. The truth is, I don’t want to get any closer to Staring Man. My friends move closer together, though, so his view is completely blocked. They are now uncomfortable as well. The mood is heavy and we’re silent.
I scan the restaurant. There are plenty of non-staring males. There’s one who seems my age having dinner with a couple of his female friends.
Should I ask him for help? But what will I tell him? He’ll just scoff at me for overreacting. Forget it.
Staring Man whispers something to his friend who then gets up, turns around, and takes his time staring at me before he goes to get his drinks.
What the hell is their problem?
When he returns, he slinks to the other end of the booth, turns around again and then stares at me. I catch him staring but he doesn’t look away. He simply keeps on looking with an indescribably unnerving stare, with a sneer on his face.
Rage boils inside of me. I’ve had enough. Why can’t I have a nice night out with my friends and eat in peace? Am I some kind of an animal in a zoo? I want to go up to them and yell at them. I want to plant a slap on their faces. I want to tell them to give me some respect. But I do none of those.
I jump out of my seat and run out of the restaurant. I can’t stand to be in their sight for a second longer. I run away from those two men, hating them for ruining my nice dinner, hating myself for not doing something about it. I blink away tears of anger, before anyone notices.
One of my friends follows me and we seek refuge in a shop next door. The shop has a glass front so I climb the first floor and hide in the back corner so that they don’t see us, if they happen to follow us. I’m scared and in a really bad mood.
They don’t come.
Thank God.
Fifteen minutes later, my other two friends join me and informed that Staring Man and Sidekick left as soon as I did. That’s when I remember that they had no food on their table. Why were they still sitting then? Nevertheless, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that they didn’t follow me into the shop. Maybe they left. Slowly, I return to my good mood and we spend a good 40 minutes in the shop. We laugh, we shop, we take a few pictures and then we leave to find a rickshaw back to university.
We exit the shop and have only walked a few paces that a car drives by near us and stops. Out comes the Staring Man, his friend sitting behind the wheel.
Oh my God, I thought they left!
We panic and run to the nearest security guard we can find.
“Uncle, aap humein please rickshaw la dein gay? (Uncle, can you please get a hold of a rickshaw for us?),” I ask.
“Aap main road pay jaein gi tou aap ko mil jaey ga. (You’ll find one if you go on the main road.)”
“Asal mein humaray peechay koi aa raha hai. (Actually, there’s someone following us).”
He is much more cooperative now and asks us to wait right there. He leaves us with a couple of other security guards. I am allowed to feel safe barely for a moment before paranoia hits us all.
I wish I’d brought something that could be used as a weapon. Why didn’t I bring my scissors? (I have taken them a couple of times as safety measures.)
Staring Man is standing a few feet away from us, lurking in the shadows. He’s still looking at us with that frightening stare of his. I just want to go back and reach safely.
Finally, we get our rickshaw and we tell the driver to take us from the main road – no shortcuts. We want to be surrounded by people and stay in the light so someone can help us if things get to their worst. Maybe it will deter them in the first place from doing anything of the sort. I don’t want to think what sort. I just need to get back.
The car comes in front of our rickshaw and tries to stop it while we’re on a narrow road.
Please, don’t let this happen!
Fortunately, we slip through a gap. But we’re not fortunate enough for long.
Staring Man brings up his car adjacent to our rickshaw and rolls down his window to talk to the driver. Our rickshaw slows down.
“Yeh larkiyan aisay he ghabra rahi hain. Inko yeh kaghaz day dein. (These girls are getting scared for no reason. Give them this paper.)”
“Kaghaz mat lein! (Don’t take the paper!)”
But he has already taken it. One of my friends grabs the paper and throws it back at Staring Man, outside the rickshaw. They speed off, cackling, pleased with themselves.
We arrive back at our university. Our nice night ruined. We went out for dinner, and came back terrorised. I narrated the entire story to one of my male friends and the conversation ended a little like this:
“Tum aisay baal khol k gai hui thi? (You went with your hair open like this?)”
“Tou phir tou peechay parna he tha us nay. (Then it’s obvious he would have followed you).”
I am flabbergasted. It was my open hair that provoked him? It’s my fault that he stalked and terrorised my friends and I? Is the man himself to no blame? The fact that he harassed me while I was doing nothing but simply having dinner with my friends is my fault. I am to blame for his misdoings. He is not wrong for being the harasser, but I am guilty of the crime of simply being there.
This was a wake up call to me regarding the extent to which people have internalised the notion of victim blaming. I have read about it, I have argued against it, but never have I had to face it like this before. My own friend was blaming me! I suddenly thought of other women who have faced sexual harassment, who have been raped, and how they must be blamed by society for bringing it onto themselves. I cannot begin to imagine what they must feel.
I wish I could end this on a more optimistic note, but I cannot. I keep imagining scenarios where I face my harasser and heroically save myself and other women from his harassment. I wonder how that must feel, but I’m suppressed by my own fears. Nonetheless, I know what I must do.
I must not stay silent.
Sue H says
You did all you needed to do at the time – you stayed safe. That’s all any of us can do. In your place I’d have stared back or gone over and asked the ‘man’ what his problem was – but then I come from a different cultural background and I’m older than you, I’m used to fighting back now. At one time I’d have been as uncomfortable as you and probably done exactly the same as you did.
One thing which may help you, and I think you should talk to your girlfriends about it too – go through the scenario again in your mind and think of all the things you could have done to tackle the situations these vile guys put you in. It’s so much easier to think of solutions when you’re not in fear of being attacked so make use of that. If a similar situation arose again how would you deal with it?
One thing I do know is that ‘men’ like that look for submissiveness, it shows them that you won’t fight back if they go further. I had it with some guy in a class a few months ago, he was staring at me as he talked (a very aggressive thing to do) so I simply stared back. I wouldn’t lower my eyes, I wouldn’t let him control me. Again, though, I have a different cultural background and plenty of experience of dealing with controlling men.
I’m not suggesting that you should suddenly become the kind of bolshy woman I am, I think that would be very tough for you in your environment and given your upbringing. What I am sure of is that there are things you and your friends can do, if you look to the future and make some action plans beforehand. Think what you want to say and do, and practise it if it’ll help. These horrible ‘men’ are prepared for the things they do to harass us so I think we should be too.
Even if it’s something as simple as ‘stop staring now’ or ‘that’s harassment, stop it’ which you keep repeating until they do stop (if they try to converse with you you don’t say anything else but just keep repeating your statement). I can’t guarantee it’ll work but I do know that strategies like this can make you feel more in control. They’ve helped me.
Whatever you do, of course you shouldn’t have to be doing any of it. You and your friends should be able to enjoy a nice meal out in peace and I’m sorry you had to go through this – especially meeting with such an ignorant response from your friend afterwards too, that guy needs educating about such things.
Good luck and well done for getting all of you home safe.
Bilal Murtaza says
I totally agree that its “NON” of women’s fault (going for dinner with friends with blow dry’s is totally alright)
its about understanding ‘our society and surroundings’. a few things which girls need to care and worry about; like which place you are going at what time, with whom you are going and the most important, how you are dressed up!?!
in-short, how to carry your self at a particular place at a particular time, matters!
like, we know what to wear at a family gathering, or lets make it more general; wearing light shades at day time and darker at night! the common facts right?!
The bottom line: I believe that it actually lessens the occurrence to such harassment!
“Mind your surroundings”
the ‘perhay likhe guys’ won’t do so, but unfortunately, bhtt perverts hein (specially in lahore) iss liyae, ihtiyaat (for your own sake) is laazim!
I might sound you a close minded guy but its just a brotherly/friendly advice to you!
pls let me know where i’m wrong, i’ll highly appreciate it!
Take good care!