By Shahida Arabi, New York, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent
I grew up in neighborhoods where street harassment was an all-pervasive part of living, breathing and communicating. This is not to say any area is exempt from the threat of street harassment – this form of harassment takes place all over the world and across all cultures. In my own country of origin, Bangladesh, street harassment is incredibly common, along with sexual harassment, and this form of “eve teasing” has even led to the suicides of young girls. I found that my experiences with street harassment in the USA did not differ as drastically as one might think from my experiences in Bangladesh.
Starting from the age of fifteen, I was routinely objectified by older male strangers on the street as a part of my everyday commute in New York. I have been followed, stalked, harassed, asked whether I was “eighteen yet,” told that putting my earphones on were against the law, cursed at for not being responsive, bashed for being sassy and talking back in a way that was not to their liking, and at one point, almost assaulted on a train by a man who followed me from train car to train car until two other men intervened.
These experiences were triggering enough without any prior history of sexual assault, but after I also experienced my first sexual assault on the streets in Bangladesh and then a later, more severe sexual assault in the U.S., street harassment became something even more darker and foreboding – it became a constant trigger that reminded me that my body was not considered my own in this society. Women are constantly reminded – through lingering stares, covert and overt sexual remarks and even touches – that their bodies are the property of the men who desire them and that their consent does not matter.
It began occurring to me that although street harassment has and always will be incredibly traumatizing for all women navigating public spaces, it will also be incredibly re-traumatizing for women whose spirits, minds and bodies have also been violated by assault, rape or physical and/or emotional violence. Those with histories of chronic trauma, who may have PTSD or Complex PTSD, will be even further debilitated by this form of harassment every day as a barrier to a peaceful, safe commute because their brain is already on high alert, scanning the environment for potential threats. As a result, these victims will are likely to experience even more anxiety, rage and depression after an incident of harassment.
RAINN estimates that there is 1 sexual assault every 107 seconds in America and an average of 293,066 victims (age 12 and older) each year. With numbers like these, along the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence, I can only imagine that there are many survivors of abuse and trauma who are being subjected to a dual traumatization on their daily commutes that are leaving them feeling further revictimized. It doesn’t help that street harassment in itself is in fact a very real threat, and many have experienced sexual assault when encountering this form of harassment regardless of their trauma history.
Street harassment also has a strong verbal component which can be psychologically retriggering for survivors of verbal and emotional abuse who may have suffered childhood abuse or long-term abuse in an intimate relationship. Being name-called on the streets as a form of retaliation after rejection as well as in the private space of your home by a spouse, partner or family member can be incredibly jolting. It can reinforce and instill a pervasive sense of helplessness and worthlessness that already exists in other facets of a victim’s life and his or her trauma history.
That is why I call street harassment the “global” trigger – it not only has the capacity to affect every country, it also has the potential to trigger every other trauma experienced in one’s life. It’s an assault and a violation on a woman’s right to navigate public spaces without having her body being considered public space.
Those who trivialize street harassment as a “compliment” are not only ignorant about the deep-seated issues of this patriarchal entitlement to women’s bodies and rape culture, they are also ignorant about the effects of trauma. According to Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score (2014), trauma lives in our bodies and rewires our brains. Incidents of trauma add onto each other and make the brain more and more hypervigilant to threat. When we are traumatized, we can “regress” back to the original trauma through visual flashbacks or ones that have a high emotional component; these are what therapist Pete Walker calls emotional flashbacks.
The people who leer, touch, degrade, objectify women and later rationalize their heinous boundary-breaking behavior with a narcissistic sense of entitlement are essentially prioritizing their selfish desires over the very real needs, boundaries and desires of the victim. Like many other forms of abuse, street harassment is not about sexual desire or flirting – it is about power, control, coercion, devaluation, objectification and manipulation.
Unfortunately, every incident of street harassment builds upon pre-existing trauma and societal stereotypes about women. This cumulative effect traumatizes and continues to re-traumatize victims in an endless cycle of sexual violence against women, especially for those who reside in neighborhoods where street harassment is a pervasive problem.
It’s time that society heed the wake-up call. Street harassment is a serious issue that is part of the larger problems of gender violence and rape culture. It is this everyday microaggression, this global trigger, that has the potential to traumatize and even re-traumatize victims, all over the world.
Shahida is a summa cum laude graduate of Columbia University graduate school and is the author of four books, including The Smart Girl’s Guide to Self-Care and Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare, a #1 Amazon Best Seller. As a passionate advocate for survivors of abuse, sexual assault and trauma, her writing has been featured on many sites. You can follow Shahida on Twitter, her blog Self-Care Haven and join her Facebook community.
