Archives for August 2013

By: Gcobani Qambela, South Africa, SSH Correspondent

August 2013 was declared “Women’s Month” by the South African government. This is in effort to commemorate the historic march organised by the Federation of South African Women on August 9, 1956, that was attended by over 20,000 women who marched to the Union Buildings in the then apartheid South Africa. The women who came from diverse backgrounds were protesting the extension of “Pass Laws” to women. As they marched, they sang:

Wathint’ abafazi,
Wathint’ imbokodo,
Uza kufa!

[When] you strike the women,
You strike a rock,
You will be crushed [You will die]!

The post-apartheid South African government has since declared the 9^th of August “Women’s Day”, an annual public holiday celebrating the courage of these women. Yet, as many have noted, despite the contribution of South African women to the anti-apartheid struggle, many women still have to battle many other oppressions in post-apartheid South Africa. Kamaria Munti for instance notes that “… rape, relationship terrorism and general cultural disparities remain critical issues for South Africa’s women.”

This was no more evident than this month of August ironically dedicated to celebrating women. The secretary-general of the largest trade union in South Africa, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), Zwelinzima Vavi, was accused of rape by a junior employer (who later withdrew the accusations). But what was worrying about this case, is not whether it was true or not, but as TO Molefe shows us, it demonstrated to us the various ways in which rape culture is still woven into the fabric of South African society. Molefe notes for instance that “From the moment the story hit the pages of the weekend newspapers, her claim was treated with doubt and judgement. Pronouncements were made about how and why her actions discredited her claims of sexual harassment and rape, yet no scrutiny was directed at the actions of Vavi and how and why they discredit his claim that he did not sexually harass or rape her.”

What was more disturbing to me is how this showed an element that is still ignored in the South African legal framework. The woman in question was harassed on Twitter with many people tagging and mentioning her in very vile messages which often centred on blaming her for being raped and sexually assaulted. An image that landed on my Twitter feed for instance showed an image of the women with an inscription saying how “who could resist?” raping her if she looked that attractive.

Victim blaming and harassment is not new in South Africa. When our own current President, Jacob Zuma was also accused of rape, there were many reports of victim blaming where the woman in question was called many violently misogynistic names. This, as the Sonke Gender Justice Project notes, happens in a country where the Bill of Rights enshrined in the Constitution proclaims in Section 12, subsection 2, that everyone regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation “has the right to bodily and psychological integrity, which includes the right to security in and control over their bodies”.

These cases the Sonke Gender Justice Project tells us that they teach and remind us that “sexual violence is endemic and that very little is done to stop it [and further that] men’s violence is still explained away by crude victim blaming.” The increasingly accessibility of social media platforms like Twitter, have increased access to victims (especially when they have been named publicly as the case with Vavi) and thus consequently opened a floodgate opportunity for sexism, rape culture, victim blaming and harassment that much easier.

This is made worse by the lack of channels to report (cyber) assaults. Last year I reported for instance on the Twitter misogynistic attack that was levelled again popular South African actress Bonnie Henna on Twitter. Some of my women and (gay) male friends have been harassed online, especially on twitter and told to “go eat a dick” or called “faggots” as a means to silence them online.

As we move into September, leaving behind “Women’s Month”, my hope is that we do not only remember the march of 1956, but that we start realising the vision they had for South Africa. The women marched not just to end systematic racialised oppression, but they marched [amongst others] for the right to own their bodies fully, to have complete freedom of movement free of harassment and full control over their humanity.

If this 2013’s Women’s Month taught us anything as South Africans however, it should be that the sacrifices of those women in 1956 are yet to be fully realised, and they deserve better. They deserve a country where women are not subjected to the harassment, sexism and oppression that they are currently subjected to in South Africa. They deserve much better than this.

Gcobani is completing his Masters in Medical Anthropology through Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. His research centres around issues of risk, responsibility and vulnerability amongst Xhosa men (and women) in a rural town in South Africa living in the context of HIV/AIDS. Follow him on Twitter, @GcobaniQambela.

By Lauren McEwen, Washington, D.C., USA, SSH Correspondent

I came here today to write about street harassment and race. How it affects me as a black woman, personally. How it distorts the way we speak about street harassment, as a whole. How I feel that my sexuality and freedom of gender expression are circumscribed by forces that I cannot control: history and bigotry and sexism.

The internal conversation that I have with myself each morning: Will this outfit draw too much attention? Can a black girl walk down the street in gym shorts without being harassed at every corner? I think all of these things and then I change into something that will leave less room for comment.

Regardless of how many anti-slut-shaming lectures I give myself, I know that my sexuality is not my own, but is tied to a history of excusing violence against black women and dehumanizing black women by portraying us as innately sexual beings with no feelings, virtue or value.

It’s a legacy that has been passed down since slavery and like many perverse tools of subjugation that were created back then, still affects our everyday.

For this reason, I get furious when I am harassed by black men on the street.

I understand that most street harassment is intra-racial, stemming from a blend of proprietary delusions and a sense of comfort while degrading women with a shared racial heritage. But, as I listened to the speakers in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington, as I feel these feelings of camaraderie and hope with people who share “my struggle,” it  reinforces old feelings of disappointment and anger that I feel each time I am harassed by a black man.

I expect better from them, and I cannot shake it. As potential victims of racial profiling and police harassment, I expect black men to be cognizant of what it feels like to be unable to walk down the street without fear, or worrying about the way your appearance or body language may be perceived.

That was why this tweet from @brokeymcpoverty, during the height of the #BlackPowerisforBlackMen hashtag’s popularity rang so true that I must print it here: “#BlackPowerIsForBlackMen because when i explain not wanting to be bothered on the street, im accused of misandry/conceit/rudeness.”

That entire trending topic spoke to the myriad of ways that women have been silenced by black men in the Black Power Movement. From women standing on stage with Dr. King 50 years ago in silence, to far too many black men refusing to acknowledge black women’s problems, while expecting us to stand behind them when called.

And yet, when Stop and Frisk was finally ruled unconstitutional, I cheered along with many others. I had spent months retweeting articles about the NYPD’s discriminatory program, tapping my touchscreen violently in outrage. I shed tears watching YouTube documentaries about the effect Stop and Frisk had on black and brown men, and how police officers were forced to harass these young men in order to stay in good standing at work.

But I have literally had a black man tell me that I “don’t love” myself because I am bothered by street harassment. A strong black woman isn’t easily bothered by constant threats and leers and groping from strangers, apparently.

That hashtag, no matter how firmly rooted in truth, was called “divisive” by some loud voices. I started seeing women friends of mine, tweeting how they love black men and disagree with everything that is being said. Others began to argue that the conversation “took away” from what we are trying to accomplish as a race. That we should continue to ignore sexism in the black community just like we should ignore racism in the feminist movement.

It directly parallels the guilt trip that I have had harassers try to employ when I refuse their advances. I am sometimes accused of “being afraid of brothers,” not being attracted to black men out of some fault of my own – usually, because I am a light-skinned snob. It’s frustrating because the black community became insular out of necessity, and in my mind, using that background to justify harassing black women perverts that history. Pet names like, brother, sister, queen and king were meant to build a sort of fellowship, and now that is distorted to place the blame on me when I am turned off by street harassment.

I expect more from black men because their sexuality has had limitations placed on it by racism, as well. The oversexed man of color is the boogeyman in too many articles that I have read about street harassment. I cannot tell you how many times I have come across comment section standoffs where women of all races swear up and down that they are harassed by men of color at disproportionate rates, unaware of how strongly their comments echo assumptions made about black male sexuality from the Nadir of American Race Relations.

Studies and my own personal experiences (I tend to be harassed by black men more frequently, but not exclusively.) tell me that that is not true, but perception and reality are two separate animals.

Some feminists who have studied street harassment argue that mistreating women is one of the only spoils of patriarchy in which black men can engage. That may be true. But it does not stop me from shaking my head in disappointment every time I’m accosted by a black, male harasser.

Am I being unrealistic? Maybe. But I have also been told that it’s foolish to dream of a day where gendered harassment in public is no longer the norm. And yet, here we all are.

Lauren is a recent graduate of Howard University where she majored in print journalism with a minor in photography. You can check out more of her work at laurenmcewen.weebly.com and follow her on Twitter at @angrywritergirl.

By Britnae Purdy, SSH Correspondent

When I first heard about Michaela Cross’s story, a young woman’s accountof how the street harassment she experienced while studying abroad in India left her with Post-Traumatic Stress-Disorder, I was intrigued. At the same time, I did not want to read it for fear of somehow either reliving or negating my own experiences with street harassment in a foreign country. Eventually I read her story, and decided that I wanted to share my own experiences with street harassment abroad and dealing with those experiences upon returning to the United States – an ordeal that I ultimately found more painful than the original harassment.

When I was eleven years old, my family moved to Kingston, Jamaica. Let me stop you right there, because if you’re not familiar with the country, I know what you may be thinking: I did not go to school under a coconut tree. Bob Marley was not the soundtrack of my life. I do not have dreadlocks.

Jamaica, much to many people’s surprise, is not the fantasy vacation-land that we see on TV commercials. Don’t get me wrong – I have seen some of the most incredible beauty of my life while living in Jamaica. Jamaica is a paradise – but the Sandals Resort-esque paradise that many Americans think of only exists for those who can afford it. I lived in the capital, Kingston, which was at the time the “murder capital” of the world. Just as vivid to me as the incredible blue ocean and the lush mountains are the rows of zinc-roofed shacks, starved dogs in the street, and the armored bus I took to school in the mornings. As an American living in Jamaica, sponsored by the embassy, I was incredibly privileged – luckily for me, my parents made a point of making sure I recognized that privilege and never took it for granted.

I experienced street harassment for the first time while living in Jamaica (I had never even heard the term before), and I experienced it consistently for the nearly four years that we lived there. Characteristics that made me one of a dozen in my previous hometown in Michigan – light skin, blond hair, blue eyes – meant I stuck out like a sore thumb in Kingston. I was hypersexualized by strangers and classmates, despite the fact that, at eleven, I had just gotten my first kiss and was still figuring out how to put on eye shadow. My sexually-based street harassment was also mixed with racial and economic tones– whereas in Michigan I was a level-headed middle-class scrawny kid, in Kingston I was often seen as the rich, white American – the spoiled foreigner. I ultimately thrived in Jamaica, but the harassment was very painful.

Still, the hardest experience was when I returned to the United States at fifteen years old. In my new town in Virginia, I once again blended entirely into the crowd – when I wasn’t harassed on the streets or in the school halls during my first couple of weeks back, I assumed that I deeply unattractive. While the harassment in Jamaica scared me, the sudden lack of sexual attention in the United States left my self-confidence floundering. I felt like I was melting into a new sense of invisibility. The anonymity was both painful and comforting, but most of all I felt lonely.

None of my new classmates could relate to my experiences living abroad – when I mentioned that I once got “riot days” off of school during elections, one girl stared at me blankly and said, “Wait, I thought you were from Jamaica? Aren’t they like, always happy there?” Another boy asked me “which island in Jamaica” I had lived on and when the last time I had seen Bob Marley was. And yes, I did get that wonderful Mean Girls rip-off line often – “If you’re from Jamaica, why are you white?” I had been a foreigner in Jamaica, and now I felt alienated in America as well. I couldn’t even talk about my day-to-day experiences in another country – talking about the sexual harassment I experienced abroad was out of the question, especially when at the young age of fifteen I was so deeply confused about what constituted negative and positive sexual attention. I buried the memories.

In fact, I didn’t talk or think about it again until I started college, which was also the next time I experienced regular street harassment. The first time I was harassed on an American street, I felt betrayed and shaken – up to that point, I had only experienced street harassment in Jamaica. I thought this practice belonged somewhere else; I wondered what I had done wrong. All those feelings from my earlier years in Jamaica came flooding back – bracing my shoulders walking down the street, a borderline irrational fear of walking alone, a prickly feeling down my spine whenever a stranger approached.

I’ve traveled extensively since living in Jamaica, but unfortunately my default setting when traveling abroad is still to expect that level of harassment. In some places I’ve been harassed, in others I haven’t – but I still find myself unable to keep from switching the rational side of my brain over to the side that is instinctively scared of strangers on the street. Michaela Cross was diagnosed with PTSD after her continued harassment – I don’t believe that applies to me, but my harassment has definitely changed my pattern of behavior and expectations when traveling abroad. It is exhausting to constantly be on alert like that, and it detracts from the pleasure of traveling. Traveling is about placing yourself outside of your comfort zone, without comparison to your daily routines – but for women, letting down our guard can also be dangerous.

I am grateful to Michaela Cross for pointing out a gap –there are very few safe spaces to discuss street harassment abroad. I believe that part of this stems from the fear of conveying racism or prejudices. Cross’s story has garnered quite a bit of attention – while some responses are well thought-out and point to varying opinions and experiences, others are disgustingly laced with bigotry, whether towards Indian men or towards Cross.

If we say that we experienced street harassment while in Country X, the mind may jump to assuming that all men from Country X are street harassers, or that sexual harassment is somehow a cultural, racial, or ethnic characteristic. That’s ridiculous. I would never attribute my street harassment in Jamaica to the entire Jamaican nationality. But like Cross, I also had difficulty learning how to speak clearly about my more negative experiences in a foreign country. If I casually mention to a friend at college that a man yelled profanities at me while I walked back from class, she would understand – our campus is generally very safe, but there is a certain road where everyone knows street harassment is common. If I try to discuss, however, the time I was harassed outside a popular restaurant in Kingston, she has no way of placing that experience into a larger concept of what Jamaica is really like. I don’t want to paint a false paradise of the cities I’ve traveled to – that locks me into a mindset that harassment isn’t a big deal, or that harassment is shameful issue that I must deal with personally and quietly. But I also don’t want to spread unnecessarily negative connotations about places that I, for the most part, loved.

Societal norms are not the same as cultural practices, and the level to which sexism and street harassment are publicly tolerated in any given society is not indicative of the “quality” of the people of that country. However, allowing experiences with street harassment abroad to fester without examining them and placing them into a larger context of gender inequality may result in a bias against that country that may border on bigotry. We need safer places to discuss harassment abroad, and perhaps more importantly we need a better language for both sharing and listening to others’ stories.

I applaud Michaela Cross for sharing her experience. Though I don’t relate to everything she said, I can respect her story for being just that – her story. I am sharing my story because it is mine and it is precious and it contains my truths. I do not expect my story to speak for others – I certainly hope Cross did not expect hers to do so. Take from it what you need, and leave what you do not. If my experiences are different from yours, that does not make either of us less valid or relevant. That is what feminist story-sharing is all about.

And for the record? I wouldn’t trade my time living in Jamaica for the world. The street harassment I faced there was a part of my experience – it by no means the sum of my experience.

Britnae is a graduate student at George Mason University, in Virginia, where she is pursuing a Master of Arts in Global Affairs with a specialization in Security and Conflict Studies. She also writes for First Peoples Worldwide and you can read more of her writing on their blog and follow her on Twitter.