One week ago in our city, a woman was abducted while crossing from the exit of the mall to the bus stop & held at gunpoint. Her abductor dragged her to his car and drove her a few blocks away with the intention of raping her.

Luckily she was able to fight him off when he put the gun down (to unzip his pants) & she got away.

Even though it was reported on the news that evening, there was no description given of the criminal and no arrest has been made. There was also nothing regarding this in the paper the next day even though lesser crimes are listed daily.

It is frustrating that the law & the press protect rapists by not listing descriptions or showing sketches. They have no qualms releasing that information if it is a fast food joint or gas station having been robbed.

And then if a woman gets raped, they blame the victim???

This happened in broad daylight. This happened in a small city in an area considered “safe”.

– Anonymous

Location: Illinois, USA

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Editor’s Note: This story was transcribed and translated from Romanian by the woman’s daughter. The mom’s story is the text outside of the brackets and the daughter’s comments are in brackets.

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In Bucharest, Romania, Boulevard 6 Martie had a large portion in which many movie theaters were close together. Trolleys passed through the center, and it was very busy. [This was about 40 years ago during the Communist era.]

I was wearing high heels and carrying a very large, elegant purse in my hand. I was walking along, very proud of my appearance, my youth, and the way my long legs looked in their attractive black patent leather heels. A dark-skinned male gypsy [Rom] appeared close by at a crosswalk, and suddenly grabbed one of my breasts and squeezed it so hard I saw stars of pain. I screamed at the top of my lungs and began running after him, beating him in the head with my large purse, swearing and yelling at him.

People were laughing, because they knew he must have done something to me, but nobody helped or got involved. At some point I kicked off my heels because it would be easier to run after him that way. At the time, shoes were extremely expensive and hard to find, and I was sure I would have lost them forever. However, a nice elderly gentleman gathered them up and brought them to me and I thanked him from my heart.

[The fact that the man is a Rom is significant, and I left that in because it shows a few important things. First, if he had been a white Romanian man, people might not have been so tolerant of my mom running after him and beating him. I can’t know this for sure, but most people have a bias toward a “respectable” appearance and have a harder time believing those people did anything wrong.

Second, in Romania, anti-Rom discrimination is among the worst in Europe and is still ongoing. When a group of people are oppressed, sometimes men in that group try hard to live up to some standard of masculinity and spread the oppression around to make themselves feel less helpless and emasculated. It’s part of a huge messy culture where people can both be victims and oppressors. In this case, my mom was a victim, and one who had every right to fight back and defend herself. However, I can’t help but think how people might have reacted if she was a Rom, and her harasser was white, and if she would even feel like it was ok to defend herself at all then.

My mom feels some shame because she used violence and swore at him. I told her she was entirely justified and that men are responsible for their own actions, so if they assault her, they have to deal with the consequences. I think a lot of the shame is due to feeling that fighting and swearing is somehow immoral or low when women do it.]

Location: Bucharest, Romania

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It was a beastly morning at work. First Monday of the month, and it is Christmas season too, so it was hard. At lunchtime I clock out and decide to go to the Riverwalk to de-stress and get some fresh air with a side helping of peace and quiet before going back to the chaos (and chaos it was, since 5 minutes after I clocked back in the phones were ringing off the hook…yep it was a Monday).

The Riverwalk is several yards down the street from my building. It is an approximately 2.5 (well that’s what they claim but I swear it’s longer) stretch of concrete winding it’s way through some forestry alongside the Flint River. I can usually go down and count on a good hour of solitude while I walk and work off my temper.

Today solitude was not to be, at least until I opened my mouth and got really nasty.

A few yards down I became aware of footsteps sounding behind me. Didn’t think too much of it at first until I really listened…the footsteps were matched exactly to my pace, step by step. I slowed down and lifted my phone as to check my text messages and turned to look. It was a guy dressed in a white t-shirt and the barely-hanging-on-his-butt jeans that a lot of the guys around here favor and as soon as he noticed me stopping he ventured off to go check something in the woods…or at least pretended to.

This repeated itself for another quarter of a mile and I finally stopped, sat at a bench, and proceeded to pretend to check something on my phone while the guy walked off only to veer off the trail again and go hang out by the water. I noticed he kept looking back at me and at one point when he did I took my cellphone and snapped his picture to forward to the cops or post on Holla Back at the very least.

Finally I guess he decided I wasn’t going to budge and he finally made his move. So he comes up and starts to open his mouth. “What’s your–”

“My name is Married Woman and I am here to enjoy some peace and quiet on my lunch break. I’m in a bitchy mood and if I wanted to get hit on I would have gone to a bar. Now go away before I forward your picture to the cops, whom I have on speed dial, and file charges for harassment.”

He left. Quickly. Good.

But WTF?!!

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After telling this story on my own personal blog I responded to a comment made by a friend with this passage that everyone thought I should repost here:

The stuff is serious because it is evidence of a larger societal problem and a huge degree of sexism and misogyny in particular…that women exist solely for the amusement and gratification of men and that we don’t own ourselves, our bodies, our looks, or the right to exist in public in peace and have our personal space respected. These guys don’t see a woman and think of someone they can get into a long-lasting meaningful relationship with, they see pair of breasts and buttocks and feel entitled to our attention and affections on the sole qualification of having a penis.

And that’s what makes me angry, that guys who do this sort of stuff don’t see you and I as people with our own feelings and desires. They see us as trophies, potential possessions for them to win and own and show off.

It is ultimately dehumanizing and even monstrous. So people who don’t think this is such a big deal can kiss my pale butt. It is a huge deal.

– Tracy Nichols

Location: Georgia

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