This article, by Patrice M. Daniel is cross-posted with permission from the blog of the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region.

Dear Caribbean Men,

We do not have to smile for you. Our smiles are our own. Our lips are our own and our smiles are a celebration of our happiness. We do not have to smile on command. We are not pretty, little, Black dolls whose smiles were painted on with red paint and a plastic brush. Sometimes, we’re busy. We’re busy thinking about geo-political trends, the next ten-mile run, and the latest cricket match. We’re too busy to be the smiling decoration that we, as women, are expected to be. Our faces can be thoughtful, angry, sad, peaceful, meditative, or bored. So stop, Caribbean men. Stop walking up to us, harassing us, and demanding that we smile. We do not have to smile for you. Our smiles are our own.

We do not have to answer you. Our names are our own. We were not christened, “Eh! Baby!” We do not have to turn around and pretend that we enjoy being summoned like pets. We are not charmed when you follow us and invade our space. We do not have to make conversation with you as you block our paths. We do not feel flattered when you stand in a group and leer at our figures, competing to see who can make the vilest remark. We do not take it as a compliment when you comment on our bodies and tell us what you intend to do with them. So stop, Caribbean men. Stop making us feel uncomfortable, afraid to walk the streets of our homelands alone. We do not have to answer you. Our names are our own.

We do not have to dance with you. Our hips are our own. Your admission to the fete did not include an all-access pass to our waists, breasts, behinds. When we walked through the gates, we did not sign permission slips. You don’t get to be angry because we don’t want you as a permanent appendage. You don’t get to grab us, restrain us, and force your bodies against ours. Our role at the fete is not to amuse, entertain, or provide you with a grinding post. Dare to imagine that we enjoy dancing alone. Dare to imagine that we enjoy dancing with our friends. Just because we dance with other guys doesn’t mean we now owe you. So stop, Caribbean men. Stop degrading us and insisting we accept your advances. We do not have to dance with you. Our hips are our own.

We do not dress for you. Our bodies are our own. The length of a skirt is not a personal message to you. Cleavage is not an invitation. Like most shoes, ours can’t speak. So, our heels don’t say, “Do me.” Our legs are not dinner bells, loudly chiming, “Come and get it!”  You don’t get to say our bare skin provoked you. You don’t get to say you lost control. Take responsibility for your behaviors just as we take responsibility for ours. And stop, Caribbean men. Stop using our clothes as an excuse when you rape or violate us. We do not dress for you. Our bodies are our own.

Sincerely,

Caribbean Women

This article is cross-posted with permission from the blog of the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region.

By: Patrice M. Daniel

I stood amidst the large crowd, trying to decide what to do. Should I leave or should I stay? I needed to leave. Given my schedule for the next day, I couldn’t afford to be out any later. I tapped my foot impatiently. I needed to get to my car and drive home, but if I left right that moment, I’d have to walk to my car alone. If I walked to my car alone, I’d run the very real risk of being raped or assaulted. What should I do? I decided to take the plunge. I would walk to my car alone. I didn’t have much of a choice. I stepped out into the dark night with both my keys and my heart in my hands.

I stand against gender-based violence because I live in a world where, as an adult female, my independence is threatened. I live in a world where I cannot do something as simple as walk to my car without fear of sexual assault. I live in a world where I have to spend twenty minutes mulling over whether to take a five-minute journey. I live in a world where I’m made to feel as restricted as a small child, unable to come and go as I please. The recent One Billion Rising  campaign reminded us that one in three women will be beaten or raped in her lifetime. I live in a world where I could be the one.

My story is typical and unremarkable. We give advice to women about how to protect themselves: do not walk anywhere alone, write down the license plate of the taxi, keep an eye on your drink. In viewing the threat of violence as normal, we stop examining the assumptions behind these messages and take it for granted that women and girls will be beaten, raped, or otherwise violated. Trying to keep women safe from inevitable assaults is pointless; what we really need to do is challenge the idea that assaults are inevitable.

It is time for a radical shift in our thinking. Instead of telling women like me not to walk to our cars alone, how about we tell the – usually male – perpetrators not to attack women who are walking to their cars alone? Instead of telling women not to wear short skirts, how about we tell our men that a short skirt is not an invitation for rape? Instead of telling women to keep an eye on our drinks, how about we teach our sons not to drug and assault women? Sexual assault is the only crime where the actions and the character of the victim are scrutinized as much, or more, as those of the perpetrator.

Violence against women and girls is distressingly widespread, but the rate of rape in the Caribbean is higher than the global average. I co-founded and manage Walking into Walls, a Facebook page to raise awareness of violence against Caribbean girls and women. Every day, we compile and share news reports from regional media and put names, faces, and stories to the 48% of adolescent girls in nine Caribbean countries who report their first sexual experience was unwanted. We call attention to the one in three women in the Caribbean who, on average, will experience domestic violence. We remind people that this should not be is business as usual, that there is nothing normal about women and girls being violated because of their gender

I did make it to my car safely that night. It was not entirely without incident, however. As I approached my car, a man’s voice emerged from across the street. He called out to me in a lewd and suggestive tone, asking me if I wanted an escort home. I ran the last few feet to the car.

Editor’s Note: Lorna Ciani lives in Rome and studies Illustration. She is the person behind the new Tumblr Princess Walnut and she kindly agreed to tell SSH’s readers about her project and what inspired it!

SSH: How has street harassment touched your life?

LC: I have been experiencing street harassment since I was 14 and the only thing that’s changed over the years is my reaction to it. As a teenager I was extremely intimidated and ashamed by it.

As a 20-year-old I felt oppressed, which resulted in a persistent sense of powerlessness. It made me very uncomfortable to be honked at by drivers or commented on when I went jogging or walking alone, for instance, so what did I do? I stayed home. Catcalls and unwanted sexual attention undermined my sense of self-worth and made me feel vulnerable and self-conscious, not to mention humiliated.

Now, at 22, harassment makes me combative and even more determined to reclaim my right to walk down the street with dignity. It’s only been a few months since I started working on what I’ve now dubbed the “Walnut Project” and examining the experiences of women worldwide through websites like Hollaback! and StopStreetHarassment.org, but this short time has been enough to make me want to stand up and fight back. I go jogging now. I go out whenever and wherever I want.

The harassment hasn’t stopped, what’s different is that I don’t let it stop me.

SSH: Good for you! What inspired your illustrations and project?

LC: The first inspiration for Princess Walnut came to me last autumn after talking to a male acquaintance who seemed genuinely shocked to discover that no, I and women everywhere do not appreciate being yelled, whistled, leered or stared at, commented on or solicited in the middle of the street, just as we don’t appreciate being followed, groped, stalked or assaulted. It seemed obvious to me, but there was this man assuring me wide-eyed that he’d never stopped to think how women might feel about it, and that he wouldn’t stand for it anymore now that he knew how upsetting it is.

That’s when I realized how much harm can come from ignorance: bystanders aren’t necessarily indifferent, they may not know exactly what it is they’re witnessing. They subscribe to the tired old belief that street harassment is just a guy’s way of paying women a compliment, that is if they even stop to consider the matter at all.

I felt a sudden, unstoppable need to do something: to create something that would draw attention to the topic of harassment, introduce and educate about it in a lighthearted way, and to which those who already know very well what harassment is and what effects it has could relate and be reminded that we’re all in it together, we all go through the same kind of thing over and over again and all of us are tired of it.

I communicate more effectively through images, not words, so there wasn’t much question about my project taking the form of a picture book; coincidentally, I was expected to produce one for my Project Management class and I had intended it to be a modern feminist fairy tale in any case. The trouble was that a picture book discussing a distressing, unpleasant, triggering topic like street harassment ran the risk of being a distressing, unpleasant and triggering read.

What’s more, I wasn’t sure I felt like drawing a cartoonified bunch of perverts. It sounds like an extreme reaction, I know, but the idea really put me off. I get my fair share of them on the street and I don’t want to have to think about them any more than I have to, never mind picture them in detail in my mind and breathe life into them on paper.

So I came up with the idea of allegorically substituting them with archetypal fairy tale bad guys, dragons. Not just one big bad evil dragon hiding in its lair, but lots of them walking the streets and mingling with everyone else. Traditionally a dragon’s bane is a knight, but of course I wasn’t about to let my princess mooch in a tower waiting for someone else to save the kingdom.

I wanted to tell an empowering story, make it entertaining, and use it to ridicule age-old roles and clichès. Even disregarding her fondness for slobbing around in front of the TV in her pyjamas on Sundays, Walnut remains an unlikely candidate for a fairy tale princess simply by not being defined at all by her looks, but solely by her aim: to stamp out street harassment. As many funny comebacks as she might make (almost all of them, as well as the dragons’ sleazy commentary, are episodes drawn from real life experiences shared on the Hollaback website. I have to say, there are some very witty people out there), I feel there is really only one way to overcome street harassment once and for all and this involves all of us, that’s what this book is all about. Standing together, fighting together, making a change together.