Cross-posted with permission from the blog 10/365
Two weeks ago, I was able to run again after 6 months on the DL. On my second run, I felt so powerful that I ended the hour doing sprints past cacti, wildflowers, University of Texas cross country runners (seated… I’m not that fast), and the houses in my neighborhood. The freedom was overwhelming.
As I walked back to my house, I was dripping sweat, shaking, and completely triumphant. I was about to turn onto my own street, when a jalopy I had noticed riding slowly behind me pulled up next to me, and I looked into its front window, expecting someone to ask me for directions. I recognized him and his car from the park where I was running. What I saw was a man looking me dead in the eyes, clearly indicating to me that he was masturbating, and exposing himself to me. He wanted me to see what he was doing, and for me to know.
Horrified, I turned the corner, and so did he.
Notoriously bad at thinking on my feet, I was so shocked I couldn’t even scream. The man continued as I sped up, and a car turned down the block, causing him to speed away. I got half of his license plate and called the police from my apartment, only after calling my parents. I am defiantly, sometimes cartoonishly independent (see: I live in Texas after being raised by liberal Chicago suburbanites). Struck dumb to the core, I could think of nothing to do but to call the people who took care of me for 18 years. I asked my father if this was an emergency. He told me to hang up and call 911.
I have tried to write and speak about this as much as I can, but have struggled. My initial thoughts were these:
1. Why don’t schools, parents, churches, anyone teach us how to deal with street harassment? It is a part of daily life that is never addressed explicitly and with much urgency by the institutions that teach us how to be people. Why do I know how to give CPR to a baby but I have to ask my dad whether or not being sexually harassed and followed is an emergency? Why do I know about wolf packs and hydroplaning when I don’t drive? So many questions.
2. Why does society keep producing men who actively seek strange women to intimidate, to humiliate, and to threaten?
3. I wish I owned a gun.
4. Why haven’t women started militant movements, when violence is perpetrated on us regularly and systematically?
5. Guns are horrible, please think better thoughts. Buy New Pepper Spray.
6. How can millions of women continue to live in a world where even their most powerful moments are subject to perversion, disrespect, and victimization?
What happened next was almost more disheartening.
I am in graduate school, and most of the people I spend my days with are smart, educated, liberal, adults with similar interests, media input, and backgrounds. In an attempt to warn my neighbors, to shed light on a situation all too common and kept quiet, I told anyone and everyone I saw. Having experienced a scare worse than this while in college, and not speaking about it and dealing with it until recently, I spoke up doubly. Here were the reactions I received:
1. Laughter. From men and women. From close friends and strangers. My brother, a true hero on that day, explained that laughing from men was a) inexcusable but b) was the reaction he thought he would have if the same thing had happened to him, as a person who is not afraid of sexual assault.
2. “What were you wearing?” Rape culture isn’t real, right? What if I looked like Heidi Klum while I was running. Is that okay? Assume that I did, because of course I did.
3. “Are you sure?” The overwhelming rage that I feel when questioned about my powers of perception, when I am the only person protecting myself in this world, is boundless. The amount of time women spend having to explain and justify their own observations and experiences, it’s a wonder that we now outperform men in so many arenas (including higher education – hi haters).
4. The explaining away of my emotional reaction: “You’re freaking out” or “Women think they see these things.” Speaking from my own experience with trauma, and from the experiences of my friends, there is nothing good that comes of alleging sexual harassment, assault, or general mistreatment. Even under the best circumstances, you are made to feel responsible, stupid, irrational, at least on some level. There is no “good attention” that you get from this. It feels awful, and talking about it is often retraumatizing.
Very luckily for me, my transamerican big sisters circled the wagon. Katrin, a ballsy, ruthless comedian and feminist, and her safe corner of the internet, gave me a place to be pissed and emotional and to hear what others had to say. Katrin later shared with us the following, from Allan G. Johnson’s book, The Gender Knot:
“For women, getting angry is socially unacceptable, even when the anger is over violence, discrimination, misogyny, and other forms of oppression. Anger is unacceptable because angry women are women in touch with their passion and power . . .. It’s unacceptable because it forces men to confront the reality of male privilege and women’s oppression and their involvement in it, even if only as passive beneficiaries. Women’s anger challenges men to acknowledge attempts to trivialize oppression with “I was only kidding.” . . .. When women are less than gracious and good-humored about their own oppression, men often feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, at a loss, and therefore vulnerable.”
The important part, the take away, from this experience and your diligent reading:
Feminism persists because of this bizarre assumption that, because women and men drink at the same water fountains, we are equal. Equal despite the fact that I cannot leave my house without worrying about being harassed, or worse, in places that are considered “safe” – my childhood suburb, my quiet Austin neighborhood, even in the hallways of a public building. For half of our population, this is laughable. For the other half, it is a needling part of our every minute.
What you can do to help:
1. Do you believe that what I just described is unfair, repugnant, or at least not the kind of society of which you want to be an active member? Identify yourself as a feminist, and say it with pride.
In a crowd full of acquaintances and friends, only one spoke on my behalf, if timidly. It is more acceptable to ask a female trauma victim if they’re “sure” something happened to them than it is for women to say, “Ya, this is not right.” This is the first step to supporting women, to changing the tides.
2. Mothers and fathers: raise your children to know that street harassment is a crime, and what to do if they experience it or see someone experience it. This means calling the police. It is a crime to sexually harass someone, even if it’s at a bus stop instead of the water cooler.
I was lucky enough to have, respectfully, the baddest bitch of a mom anyone has ever had. I am not scared to talk about things that aren’t right because of this. To my mom and all moms: thank you for teaching us to stick up for ourselves. You are feminists. Be proud. There is a reason this generation is vocal and organized about our convictions.
3. Stand up for the injustices you see. Just say something. It’s easy. You open your mouth and let the good sense that is in your head be recognized by the people around you. There are more good, caring people in this world than otherwise, and the balance can shift with the weight of your openness, your thoughts, your words. Apply this to nearly every situation in your life. Feel better about what you’re doing to shape the way people treat each other.
I hope you will share this, talk about this, think about this. At this moment, there are women in Nigeria being stolen and sold, with little aggressive intervention, and there are starlets telling a generation of young women, I’m not a feminist because I don’t think women should have more power than men. Set the record straight on what it means to support women and to make this world safe for us to live in.
– Emma Marie Martin
Location: 32nd and Duval, Austin, TX 78705
