A couple of weeks back I wrote a piece in response to an incident I had been subjected to in which a random stranger on a street told me to smile. To say the occurrence made me angry would be a complete understatement and the piece I contrived afterwards was one understandably rooted in emotion. The article I will present you with today will still draw on my personal experience as a woman who has been subjected to street harassment but I’ll attempt to draw your attention to the issue as a whole. This piece is designed to highlight the inbuilt societal trigger points which rest on entitlement and contribute to a culture in which verbal harassment, physical intimidation and cat calling in public are an everyday occurrence. Taking that one step further, it is an expected and accepted occurrence and form of everyday misogyny which women are subjected to on the daily.
In the fall out of the blog I composed a few weeks ago quite a few family members began to ask me questions around ‘what exactly happened’ to warrant that, as some of them labelled it, ‘rant’?! When I provided them the details of that night they seemingly exhaled with relief saying ‘oh is that all?’ The next iteration of this response then played out in which they retorted ‘he must have been drunk’ or ‘he was probably just trying to start a conversation’. I remember taking a deep intake of breath and thinking to myself where do I even start in beginning to explain the interconnectedness of these ‘one off events’. The truth is when as a woman you start to speak of the presence of a deep seated patriarchy most people with either roll their eyes at you, switch off mentally or just write you off as some man-hating feminazi who is constantly drawling about a feigned ‘inequality’.
Well how about instead of pointing to this notion I present the facts. In a study conducted by the Australia Institute 87% of women they interviewed reported having experienced one form of verbal or physical street harassment in their lives. Of the 18-24 year old demographic 83% of women had experienced street harassment within the last 12 months. The majority of these women identified that they felt unsafe walking alone at night and most also reported that the street harassment they endured had made them modify their behaviour when in public.
Plan Australia within their ‘A Right to Night’ publication recognised that such modifications to women’s behaviour in this sense are” limiting the rights of girls and young women in Australia and around the world to move freely in public places and participate in activities outside the home”. The report touched on the most important concept of all which seems to get lost in the rhetoric around street harassment, that being a woman’s right to feel safe. Whether that be in public, on the street or anywhere else, this is a fundamental right to which all human beings should be attributed to regardless of anything else. I can’t help but link the notion of an all inhibiting sense of insecurity for women on the streets to a patriarchal element of control of movement and a questioning of a woman’s place to be seen in public in the first place.
For those of you who are still unconvinced let me remind you that whistles, cat-calls, stares, unwanted comments, touching or being followed by strangers on the street are actually pervasive forms of harassment. In addition to this for any ideas on the contrary no, women do not feel chuffed or appreciative of such ‘attention’. Women are sick and tired of being objectified in this way and what’s more, having to put up with such behaviour on a regular basis. No, we will not be made to feel like we are whining unnecessarily about ‘harmless’ conduct of ‘clueless’ men. This behaviour is symptomatic of an entrenched misogyny in which men feel entitled to objectify women as they please. More troublingly, this type of behaviour feeds into ideals of toxic masculinity, pack mentalities and a sickeningly common attitude towards rape culture.
The next time that someone around you attempts to defend or play down an incident in which your physical security was threatened by a man on the street (or anywhere else for that matter), present them with one simple but poignant question… ‘Do I not deserve to feel safe?’
End. – Day 10.
*For more information please refer to reference points for this article:
http://www.tai.org.au/sites/defualt/files/Everyday_sexism_TAIMarch2015_0.pdf
https://www.plan.org.au/~/media/plan/documents/resources/a-right-to-the-night.pdf
*Also check out this incredible collection of photos and stories of women explaining street harassment through their own life experiences:
I blog for Change. 