I'm taking this blog to the streets...the epidemic of street harassment. Sorry for the corny intro...not going to go any further than that. First a disclaimer, I will probably refer to all cases of street harassment below in the form of "he" as the perpetrator and "she" as the victim. Not to take away the power from other cases of street harassment, of which I will acknowledge that street harassment is also a huge problem for gay males as well. I'm not even going into the harassment of heterosexual men by women...honestly, I feel like it just doesn't happen but please feel free to prove me wrong. My argument is that our (referring to the world culture in general, more or less) concept of masculinity has been seriously fucked up. Man = strong, loud, heterosexual, assertive, aggressive, emotionless. The list can go on. Our concept of femininity is no better, although evolving slowly. Woman = quiet, weak, docile, domestic, passive, emotional, irrational. Again, the list can certainly continue. I am talking about stereotypes here people, and how these stereotypes have created hostile streets for us women.
I have been slowly brewing a deep burning intense hatred for the male gender, cultivated after years of being harassed in the streets. I walk down the streets with mace in my hand, and if I don't have it I feel completely defenseless and spend my entire walk thinking about what I have in my backpack that could possibly double as a lethal weapon. I'm not kidding, I actually walked home with a sharp cement rock in my hand last week. This is the world WE have created, this is what WE let happen. I am the first to bare my teeth and attack when someone practices "victim blaming," but if we don't recognize the role of the victim in these circumstances we can never work towards real change. There is a reason that THIS harasser chooses THIS victim. It's not fair that the victim has to defend themselves, but if we practice all of this "victim pampering" nothing will ever change. It's shitty, it's not fair, but it happens so let's do something about it.
I walk a lot, so I have a lot of time to watch the people walking in front of me and see which man turns their head, whistles, yells something offensive, whatever. From my experience, it is not always about looks. A beautiful woman will turn heads, but not necessarily receive the same type of street harassment as the next jane. These perpetrators do not follow social rules (as in the rule of don't piss off or scare the shit out of your fellow woman), but they generally know how to avoid being caught. Like a lion chooses the sick antelope, a man chooses his "silent victim" (as termed by my good friend, Erik Kondo). Maybe that's not the best analogy, but I like the mental image it conjures up. These men look for the woman who will not say anything, which is many times even a friend or family member. What these assholes don't know (and either did we women know until recently), that their low-life strategy gives us the power. We can choose to not be the silent victim, calling him out on his fuckery. Teaching this attitude is much easier and effective than self-defense. We will not crush a guy's trachea for cat-calling us on the street (or better said, we SHOULDN'T do that), but if we knew the right verbal response we can still defend ourselves and crush his prick perverted spirit.It's not our fault, we didn't know we have this power. We, as women, have been well conditioned to be quiet, docile, weak, passive, blah blah. And men have been taught to be the strong, loud, assertive, blah blah. So, what we can do is turn the tables and become the strong loud assertive person and tell this man to fuck off...but really FUCK OFF. This is all just theory, so please don't sue me if it doesn't work...with some men it just fuels the fire and they become more excited- in that case pull out your mace, call the police, blow hot raging fire from your mouth, do whatever you need to do to get away from a possibly dangerous situation. It is important to always be aware and evaluating your surroundings. If you are in a desolate area it might not be such a good idea to practice this strategy. In a well-populated area, get loud and embarrass the shit out of him in front of the world...its really pretty satisfying.
Anyways, I'm not trying to victim blame or to say it is our sole duty to change our misogynistic culture because that's not fair. But we don't live in a vacuum and we are not powerless helpless women. We can help become part of the change one day at a time and hopefully one day when I leave my house without my mace I will not spend my walk looking for hard sharp objects to lodge into someone's cranium.
By the way, check out this awesome story about a tough chick who spoke up: http://jezebel.com/street-harassment/
