Being scared on public transport (musings on sexual harassment)
Hi,
Today's thoughts are something I decided to write about because of a thing that recently happened to me. It brought up a bunch of memories of experiences that I'd gladly forgotten and I felt like now was the time to write about them. These thoughts and experiences have to do with sexual harassment so if that is something that triggers bad things for you feel free to click away.
I'm going to write about this from my own perspective, so while I acknowledge that men also can get sexually harassed, that is not what todays post is about. Often when women write about sexual harassment experiences its something that for them has started when they were very young, and has continued widely into their adult life. The comment sections fill with other women's experiences and it begins to look horrifying with how many things some people have had to live through. I'm lucky in a way, that I've only had a few bad experiences. But still, those experiences have affected me.
I remember being 15, sitting in the library of my home town reading some magazines. Suddenly, two guys come over. One sits next to me, like, right next to me. Now, if you've ever been harassed you know the type of fear I was feeling. Its the kind where your heart sinks to your chest and you start feeling like you can't escape and you start operating with a low-key panic while trying to look calm so you can exit the situation as peacefully as possible.
Now, you know me, I hate to cause conflict or deal with it, so I tried to be nice and not assume anything bad of these people just because they sat next to me. I kept looking down at my magazine trying to figure out a way to get out of this situation where I was basically surrounded. These guys looked about two years older than me and I had no idea what they wanted.
Then one of them spoke up. He started asking me about my age, whether or not I had a boyfriend, if I could give him or his brother my number. I kept telling them I wasn't interested and that I wasn't going to give them my number, but they kept asking me for it. The other boy was now sitting on my other side and I had no idea of how to get away from this situation. I didn't want to overreact and call for help because that might have made the boys aggressive, and I didn't want to make a run for it because I didn't know how they would react, so I just kept avoiding their advances while wishing that some member of staff would instinctively find where I was sitting and tell these boys to go away. It was a very scary situation for me because I had no idea what was going to happen next. I was small, sort of helpless and weak, if they had decided to physically move me they could've easily done so.
Trying to seem friendly and co-operative while experiencing panic is so draining. You feel like if they notice you're not being nice they'll become less nice themselves. Eventually a member of staff came over, I guess he had heard me talking, and he told the boys to go away. I got up and went to sit in an area that had other people very close by in case the boys came back. My dad finally arrived to pick me up and I told him what had happened. I know this is a very mild example but it scared me enough to not go to the library for the next three weeks, just because seeing the library made me feel uneasy and frightened.
A few years later a drunk man on a train started asking me why I was reading instead of being "a good woman" and doing dishes at home. There were other people sitting around us so I felt safer, but it was still unpleasant for someone to start picking apart what you're doing and what you look like in front of others. I had no idea what was going to happen then either.
A few catcalls, such as "god, i love a girl in thigh highs" (I do not appreciate this as a compliment when its coming from a 50 year old man walking by who could easily attack me if he felt like it), and I've walked away relatively unscathed.
Then about a week ago I had a disgusting experience. I was on a train back home after visiting Helsinki and sat alone in a group of four benches. I was reading a book so I only noticed a bit after that a man had sat across from me. He looked inebriated in some sense but I didn't want to draw any conclusions or judge him right away. My mind was telling me to get up and move to sit somewhere else, because he made me feel uneasy, but I didn't know if he would follow me or if that would be extremely rude of me to do so I stayed there. I was wearing my favorite skirt and a pair of black sparkly tights and I began regretting this choice very soon as I could see the man was looking at my legs once in a while and then grunting and putting his hand in his pocket to, what I innocently assumed was him just "adjusting something". I tried to ignore him for the journey and concentrate on my book but he kept staring at my legs and putting his hand in the pocket of his joggers. Finally, after the most tortorous 35 minutes the train arrived at my station and I got up to leave. The man stopped me, looked me in the eyes and said to me "Hei mä halusin vaan sanoa että sulla on ihan kamalan seksikkäät jalat siis voi että" (translates into "I just wanted to say you have incredibly sexy legs") at which point I interrupted him and said I didn't speak Finnish (one of my defense mechanisms to avoid unwanted dialogue). He then pointed at my legs and said "Your legs, so sexy" in English. And finally I was free to leave and exit the train.
Now I fully understood what had been happening in the train and what his constant fiddling had been. Shame set in. I felt disgusted by myself, by what I was wearing (which is something I've been wearing at university weekly and saw no problem with before) and by the fact that I hadn't left the situation earlier.
If you know me you know I'm always advocating for the right for women to be able to wear what they want without being blamed for their assault, but this mentality didn't reach myself. I felt like it was my fault because if I hadn't been wearing what I was wearing he would've kept to himself. Of course, it wasn't my fault. And I should be able to wear a skirt without having to worry about being sexually harassed anywhere. But in my mind my legs where what caused this entire situation and I was to blame.
I still feel disgusted. I cannot imagine what it feels like for women who have been through things much worse. The only ways this has affected me is that I now, instead of seeking the peace of solitude on trains, search for the most densely seated area. I have stopped wearing skirts out, until I'm more comfortable with the idea again. Still, my heart instinctively goes to my stomach when a man sits across or next to me on a train. I have no idea what could happen and I hate being afraid in normal situations.
I told my friends about what had happened and they told me it wasn't my fault, for which I thank them. And deep down I knew it wasn't my fault. And yet, if my experience had been televised and a poll put up of whether or not I was "asking for it" by wearing a skirt, there would be a lot of people who would be of the opinion that its the woman's responsibility to dress "modestly" (whatever that means) to avoid such situations. This kind of mentality should insult men. Men should be insulted that people think of them as creatures who cannot help themselves when presented with women dressed in a fashion that they find attractive. I've heard people make the argument "men are like sharks, if you put a piece of meat in front of sharks they're going to eat it, its in their nature just like for men they can't resist if a woman is dressed sexily" and that argument is bullshit. What surprises me is men making this argument, saying "I couldn't help myself" or "she was asking for it". Do you have such little faith in your fellow men? Do you really believe that your responsibility in these kinds of situations can be shifted with a shitty pseudo scientific "its because of the way we're wired"-argument?
It should never be the responsibility of the victim to have "done something differently". Thats going to be what they are thinking to themselves anyway, so society agreeing with them and saying its their fault for being assaulted or harassed is just strengthening the way we shift responsibility away from the guilty party, which is the attacker.
I'm sorry this got heated and angry and uncomfortable. It just sickens me that there are still people out there who think victim blaming is ok. And I hope my male friends understand that my "fear" of male strangers in public has nothing to do with them and everything to do with me being afraid of these situations because of past experiences. Thank you if you read this far. This was a really personal one.
-Becks
Today's thoughts are something I decided to write about because of a thing that recently happened to me. It brought up a bunch of memories of experiences that I'd gladly forgotten and I felt like now was the time to write about them. These thoughts and experiences have to do with sexual harassment so if that is something that triggers bad things for you feel free to click away.
I'm going to write about this from my own perspective, so while I acknowledge that men also can get sexually harassed, that is not what todays post is about. Often when women write about sexual harassment experiences its something that for them has started when they were very young, and has continued widely into their adult life. The comment sections fill with other women's experiences and it begins to look horrifying with how many things some people have had to live through. I'm lucky in a way, that I've only had a few bad experiences. But still, those experiences have affected me.
I remember being 15, sitting in the library of my home town reading some magazines. Suddenly, two guys come over. One sits next to me, like, right next to me. Now, if you've ever been harassed you know the type of fear I was feeling. Its the kind where your heart sinks to your chest and you start feeling like you can't escape and you start operating with a low-key panic while trying to look calm so you can exit the situation as peacefully as possible.
Now, you know me, I hate to cause conflict or deal with it, so I tried to be nice and not assume anything bad of these people just because they sat next to me. I kept looking down at my magazine trying to figure out a way to get out of this situation where I was basically surrounded. These guys looked about two years older than me and I had no idea what they wanted.
Then one of them spoke up. He started asking me about my age, whether or not I had a boyfriend, if I could give him or his brother my number. I kept telling them I wasn't interested and that I wasn't going to give them my number, but they kept asking me for it. The other boy was now sitting on my other side and I had no idea of how to get away from this situation. I didn't want to overreact and call for help because that might have made the boys aggressive, and I didn't want to make a run for it because I didn't know how they would react, so I just kept avoiding their advances while wishing that some member of staff would instinctively find where I was sitting and tell these boys to go away. It was a very scary situation for me because I had no idea what was going to happen next. I was small, sort of helpless and weak, if they had decided to physically move me they could've easily done so.
Trying to seem friendly and co-operative while experiencing panic is so draining. You feel like if they notice you're not being nice they'll become less nice themselves. Eventually a member of staff came over, I guess he had heard me talking, and he told the boys to go away. I got up and went to sit in an area that had other people very close by in case the boys came back. My dad finally arrived to pick me up and I told him what had happened. I know this is a very mild example but it scared me enough to not go to the library for the next three weeks, just because seeing the library made me feel uneasy and frightened.
A few years later a drunk man on a train started asking me why I was reading instead of being "a good woman" and doing dishes at home. There were other people sitting around us so I felt safer, but it was still unpleasant for someone to start picking apart what you're doing and what you look like in front of others. I had no idea what was going to happen then either.
A few catcalls, such as "god, i love a girl in thigh highs" (I do not appreciate this as a compliment when its coming from a 50 year old man walking by who could easily attack me if he felt like it), and I've walked away relatively unscathed.
Then about a week ago I had a disgusting experience. I was on a train back home after visiting Helsinki and sat alone in a group of four benches. I was reading a book so I only noticed a bit after that a man had sat across from me. He looked inebriated in some sense but I didn't want to draw any conclusions or judge him right away. My mind was telling me to get up and move to sit somewhere else, because he made me feel uneasy, but I didn't know if he would follow me or if that would be extremely rude of me to do so I stayed there. I was wearing my favorite skirt and a pair of black sparkly tights and I began regretting this choice very soon as I could see the man was looking at my legs once in a while and then grunting and putting his hand in his pocket to, what I innocently assumed was him just "adjusting something". I tried to ignore him for the journey and concentrate on my book but he kept staring at my legs and putting his hand in the pocket of his joggers. Finally, after the most tortorous 35 minutes the train arrived at my station and I got up to leave. The man stopped me, looked me in the eyes and said to me "Hei mä halusin vaan sanoa että sulla on ihan kamalan seksikkäät jalat siis voi että" (translates into "I just wanted to say you have incredibly sexy legs") at which point I interrupted him and said I didn't speak Finnish (one of my defense mechanisms to avoid unwanted dialogue). He then pointed at my legs and said "Your legs, so sexy" in English. And finally I was free to leave and exit the train.
Now I fully understood what had been happening in the train and what his constant fiddling had been. Shame set in. I felt disgusted by myself, by what I was wearing (which is something I've been wearing at university weekly and saw no problem with before) and by the fact that I hadn't left the situation earlier.
If you know me you know I'm always advocating for the right for women to be able to wear what they want without being blamed for their assault, but this mentality didn't reach myself. I felt like it was my fault because if I hadn't been wearing what I was wearing he would've kept to himself. Of course, it wasn't my fault. And I should be able to wear a skirt without having to worry about being sexually harassed anywhere. But in my mind my legs where what caused this entire situation and I was to blame.
I still feel disgusted. I cannot imagine what it feels like for women who have been through things much worse. The only ways this has affected me is that I now, instead of seeking the peace of solitude on trains, search for the most densely seated area. I have stopped wearing skirts out, until I'm more comfortable with the idea again. Still, my heart instinctively goes to my stomach when a man sits across or next to me on a train. I have no idea what could happen and I hate being afraid in normal situations.
I told my friends about what had happened and they told me it wasn't my fault, for which I thank them. And deep down I knew it wasn't my fault. And yet, if my experience had been televised and a poll put up of whether or not I was "asking for it" by wearing a skirt, there would be a lot of people who would be of the opinion that its the woman's responsibility to dress "modestly" (whatever that means) to avoid such situations. This kind of mentality should insult men. Men should be insulted that people think of them as creatures who cannot help themselves when presented with women dressed in a fashion that they find attractive. I've heard people make the argument "men are like sharks, if you put a piece of meat in front of sharks they're going to eat it, its in their nature just like for men they can't resist if a woman is dressed sexily" and that argument is bullshit. What surprises me is men making this argument, saying "I couldn't help myself" or "she was asking for it". Do you have such little faith in your fellow men? Do you really believe that your responsibility in these kinds of situations can be shifted with a shitty pseudo scientific "its because of the way we're wired"-argument?
It should never be the responsibility of the victim to have "done something differently". Thats going to be what they are thinking to themselves anyway, so society agreeing with them and saying its their fault for being assaulted or harassed is just strengthening the way we shift responsibility away from the guilty party, which is the attacker.
I'm sorry this got heated and angry and uncomfortable. It just sickens me that there are still people out there who think victim blaming is ok. And I hope my male friends understand that my "fear" of male strangers in public has nothing to do with them and everything to do with me being afraid of these situations because of past experiences. Thank you if you read this far. This was a really personal one.
-Becks
What is it with libraries, seriously? :/ Every time someone has made a pass at me it has happened in the library, and one of those times was a bit scary just like your encounter with the brothers. The guy just wouldn't leave me alone, and I completely understand why you wanted to act polite in every single one of those situations too: you just don't want to make a guy bigger than you angry. I don't have a lot of experience on street harassment, but that's probably because I always wear large headphones in public and can't hear anything over the music. I hope you won't see a lot of assholes like those guys in the future :( Stay safe dear
ReplyDeleteI guess there's something about libraries being one of those public spaces where people feel its ok to approach others? And people don't want to make a scene in a library so often that can also contribute I suppose. I'm so sorry that you've also been through this kind of thing! And thank you, I also hope I can avoid these kind of dickheads in the future.
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