By ProChange member Malaika B., SSH Correspondents
For the last few days in Germany, the “sexism-debate” has been all over the media and social media networks, like Twitter.
What I’ve been asking myself those days: Why is there even a debate about it? What can be so “debatable” about sexual harassment that it’s being covered in all kinds of TV-Talkshows and newspaper-articles?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for talking about street harassment and sexual harassment experiences of all kind and making it a public issue. What I don’t get though is, why is there a discussion about it?
If a person sexually harasses or assaults another person that is plain wrong. End of story.
Shouldn’t it be a given (a matter of course) that you just don’t do that and that we should be empathic and supporting towards the victims? And no, sexual harassment is NOT the same as flirting and it’s also NOT a short gaze. And no, it’s not hard to not sexually harassing other people.
It’s not sexist against men to want sexually harassing behaviour to stop. However it IS sexist against men, to assume men would be to stupid to recognize the difference between flirting and sexual harassment or to expect that men just can’t help themselves from sexually harassing women (especially if they’re drunk or the women is dressed a certain way).
I believe in men and I believe that they in fact can do better than that. I believe that they are more than just creatures led by their “basic instincts.” It really isn’t that hard to not engage in sexual harassment and I believe men can do that (in fact I even personally know men, who’ve never sexually harassed anyone).
What is sexual harassment?
Sexual harassment are inappropriate comments, which reduce someone to their physical appearance comments that degrade and humiliate the other person. Sexual harassment is groping another person. Sexual harassment is behaviour that is degrading, dominating, hurtful, threatening or insulting behaviour. Flirting with someone is none of that.
Flirting is consensual. The purpose of a flirt is not to make the other person feel ashamed, degraded, or threatened. Sexual harassment is abuse of powers and domination. It has absolutely nothing to do with consensual flirting and those two things can not be mixed up (?). Men (or women for that matter) do not harass on accident, they do perfectly know what they’re doing.
There are two arguments that I heard a lot during the ongoing debate:
1. “Well why doesn’t she just fight back then?”
There are many reasons why victims of sexual harassment or sexual violence do not fight back: Shame, freezing in shock, or being dependent on that person. It’s perfectly normal to freeze out of shock in a situation of sexual harassment or assault. If your body reacts with freezing there is physically no way to react to the situation. Fighting back after the freeze wears off might also be difficult for a couple of reasons: The person attacked, doesn’t know the attacker (for example in a classic street harassment scenario or if it happens in a Club/a Bar). Till the victim is ready to fight back, it might already be to late as the attacker might already have left.
But even if the victim knows the harasser, there might be incapable of doing anything against them, out of shame. (Feeling ashamed after the attack, is a very common psychological reaction among victims of sexual harassment or sexual assault). Another reason for not fighting back might be that the harassment happens in the work place and the victim is scared to lose their job, if they say something.
The victim also needs some time to realize and process what just happened to them. Living in a society, where it’s common for people to belittle experiences of sexual harassment does make it anything but easy to realize „what just happened to me was in fact sexual harassment“. This debate shows once more that we all live in a rape culture, in which victim-blaming has become kind of the norm. This unfortunately so common way of thinking makes it quite hard for victims to not blame for what happened to them.
But let’s just say the victim does find a way to fight back. So? Is that question of fighting back or not fighting back even the point? Why are we focusing on the victim’s behaviour? Shouldn’t it be a given, that the person who did wrong, is NEVER ever the person who fought back or not fought back, who dressed a certain way, or who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The one who did wrong and who is the only one to blame for the situation is ALWAYS the person who harasses, who crosses boundaries that should never be crossed. His behaviour should be examined and questioned and not the behaviour of the victim. Why do people keep asking what the victim could have done different instead, including putting even more shame and blame on them? Rape is caused by rapists and sexual harassment is caused by people who harass – but not ever by the victim! Anyone who says differently, does not only have the actual facts wrong, but also hurts the victims of harassment and assault even more.
2. “#outcry turns all men into perpetrators”
If there are people out there, who are brave enough to talk about their experiences with sexual harassment, how could that in possibly attack a whole gender? If all, those stories attack only the one person who did wrong in the situation: The person who harassed. How could anyone feel addressed or offended by something they didn’t do?
This whole debate is not at all about “Men vs. Women.” Of course men can get sexually harassed or violated, too. And of course sexual violence against men is just as bad as it is for women. #Outcry is also a platform for male and trans* victims. They are just as much invited to talk about their experiences on there as women. How could the argument „men can get victimized too“ be an argument against #outcry? Shouldn’t it rather be a source of motivation to fight side by side against sexism and sexual harassment?
Nevertheless it is still correct to say that men don’t know female every-day reality (as said by Anne Wizorek in the talk show “Günther Jauch”).
Please don’t get me wrong, the following is not supposed to belittle attack against men – as said before, there are just as bad as violence against women is. Yet it is a matter of fact that statics show women at a much higher risk of getting sexually harassed, assaulted, or even raped. (Almost) every woman has or will be experience sexual harassment at least once during her lifetime. A lot of women do in fact experience this on a day-to-day-base.
For us women, the danger of becoming a victim of sexual violence is always present. We think about whether or not, we can walk around certain areas alone at night. If we’re walking outside after dawn, we keep looking behind us wondering if the guys happening to walk behind us might present a danger or not. If we’re in a club or a bar we are careful to never let our drinks out of sight. If we’re on the dance floor we always got our eyes on all the guys dancing close to us to monitor if anyone might get too close, yet we still gotta expect that every time we go out dancing someone will either get too close to us/touch us or our girlfriends. When we use public transports, we always consider which seat to sit on, would minimize our risks of getting sexually harassed.
Being in public we always are careful not to look someone to long in the eyes so that the other person doesn’t confuse it as some sort of signal or invitation. When we’re out in public we always screen our enviroment, we got our cell phones easy to reach. At night we walk the longer route just to be safe. If we’re in a club/public transport/on the street at night (and sometimes at daytime too) we are always on alert. We know the anxiousness and the panic, the sound of steps behind us can cause. For us the danger of becoming a victim of sexual harassment/assault/rape is always present in our minds.
And even if we are being careful and if we’re being on alert all the time, we can still not prevent that we get groped, that we’ll get degraded by inappropriate comments, that we’ll get threatened and harassed. All those many guys, who grope us, who try to kiss us, who don’t accept a „No“, who will whistle at us on the street, who will comment our touch our breasts and behinds while casually passing us on the street, those who scare the heck out of us, those who make us feel dirty, ashamed and humiliated, those who might eventually go even further than that, all those guys are part of our daily lives. Every woman who happens to go to clubs, who happens to just walk along a street, ride a bus, go to work, knows this guys and knows this feeling.
And that should be the real scandal: That women (and men) still have to face those kind of situations (all the freaking time). That there are people out there who sexually harass other people. That there are people who think they have the right to cross boundaries, the right to attack the physical and emotional integrity of another person. That is what should appall or shock us all. And we should encourage those, who are brave enough to break their silence about the horrible things that happened to them.
Instead of doing so, people jump to the defense of the attacker, there are all those talks about what the victim should do or should’ve done differently, and actual experiences of sexual harassment are being belittled.
Seeing and hearing the responses to the ongoing debate does already provide the answer to the question of whether or not we have a problem with sexism in Germany.
The German-based group ProChange is comprised of women from Dortmund who are activists for women’s rights.
