This essay details the change in my reaction to being harassed in public by men. I then briefly point out my own issues with racial dynamics in these interactions and acknowledge the multitude of privileges I have surrounding these situations.
A lot of us, especially if we're women, have been whistled at, grabbed at, and told how fine our tits/ass/whatever looks. Ever since we were 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12,... I don't really remember the day that I realized that my body was fair game for a man to comment on. Suddenly, I just started noticing that when I was walking with myself or a friend, honks, whistles, and leers would start following me. It didn't matter that I was only 14. It didn't matter that I wasn't slim and didn't have double-D breasts. It didn't matter that not even my own parents thought I was pretty. It was enough that I was a teenage female, out in public, and wearing something that was more revealing than a suit of armor. Somehow, that made me a legitimate target.
At first, I never quite let my mind explore how I felt. I only knew that I felt helpless and somewhat unsettled. But those were unpleasant feelings. It wasn't the fact that my body was seen sexually that bothered me. By this time, I had developed my own set of sex-positive principles. How these men acted towards my friends and I were without our consent and it had nothing to do with how prudish we were or how interested in sex we were. But despite the fact that this kind of behavior bothered the heck out of me, it quickly became almost an expected part of the routine. Whenever a man started looking me up and down, or honking at me or following me in their truck, it was just something to brush off and pretend not to notice, to numb yourself and go on with your business. After all, the majority of men just passed me by; I didn't feel helpless 99% of the time I was in public.
But then I started getting angry. One day, while I was walking to the 7-11 to get some sodas for a club meeting, I walked past a group of other kids from my high school. One of them grabbed my ass, but I didn't see which one it was and at the moment, my instinct was to just get myself out of the situation. Having someone's hand momentarily contact my butt wasn't worth getting beat up over. It wasn't the fact that I was afraid of the physical force of guys, though I took that into consideration, it was also the fact that there were many girls in the group. Girls who condoned this kind of harassment against other girls. I shouted "F--- YOU!" to them but they just laughed. Then, when I started college and was getting ready to go clubbing with a group of friends and acquaintances, the other girls warned me that I shouldn't have worn a skirt because it meant exposing oneself to the possibility of having one's vulva touched by a guy. A part of me was revolted that this seemed like a common practice, but it pissed me off more to feel pressured to have to change my outfit. Later, I told a guy acquaintance about that night. He said, "Well, if you're going to wear something short, you're going to have to expect comments." And on and on it went. One of my best women friends said, "They're just trying to get a reaction out of you. You can't respond. That's the only thing you can really do." But nothing really sat right. I used to be numb, and now I seethed with more anger than I could manage. I'm still not sure what the best way to react, both externally, to the other person, and internally, in taking care of myself.
Today was a little different, though. Christina and I were waiting for her friends to buzz us into their apartment. While we were talking, two men saw Christina, and one of them said, "Hello, what's your name?" and stroked her elbow. She pretended that that did not just happened and started to talk to me again. But I turned towards them and said, "Excuse me."
"Excuse you?" the man replied.
"Stop f-----' disrespecting her!" I said firmly.
"How was I disrespecting her? I was just saying hi! I wasn't talking to YOU," he sneered.
"By touching her like that!" I replied.
"I wasn't talking to you," he said again. "I was talking to her."
By that time, Christina's friend had come downstairs to let us in. While we were walking up the concrete stairs, I heard the two men shouting in the distance, "BIIIIIIIITCH" and mocking my words: "'Stop f-----' disrespecting her! Stop f-----' disrespecting her!'" I was flustered, but for the sake of her friends, pretended that nothing had happened. While no one else was talking to us, she thanked me. She said that she isn't confrontational and would never say anything. I told her that maybe it was better that she could deal with it better than I could.
What I wanted to say to her but didn't was that this very individual act is also very political. Those men were so threatened by the words of a nerdy-looking girl who was a little chubby and wore glasses that they had to retaliate by howling "BIIIIIIITCH" at me. They never expected to be challenged because of their assumption of the helplessness of women. It probably won't make them think twice before accosting another woman, and I'm sure that they'll harass another woman similarly, but it did shake them up for a moment. It stopped the trajectory of reinforcing the perceived vulnerability of women. What if every harasser, regardless of gender or whatever, was challenged? They wouldn't be able to easily assume that they could get away with it if the other person challenged their "right" to violate someone else's body and space.
All that being said, if I didn't mention the fact that I am pretty sure that most of these instances were perpetrated by men of color (except for the time when a group of white men decided out loud that I had "no ass"), I wouldn't feel like this entry was complete. A lot of times, the only thing I can think of that would be as hurtful to them as having my space violated is to me would be to say something that scrapes a raw racial nerve, even though in most other instances I would consider myself an anti-racist. But throwing away my principles when it's convenient isn't the way to go if I'm truly anti-racist, and it makes me an awful person for even considering that option. Dismantling privilege isn't about hurting the other person the way they harm you because it does not cause the internal change necessary, the change that is needed for someone to choose to take away their own power and privilege. The other thing is that I actively remind myself that these few instances cannot be the basis of the stereotyping of men of color.
Finally, I wanted to acknowledge my own privileges in the writing on this issue. I do not know what non-Asian Pacific Islander women of color face. I do not know appropriate ways of responding, or what goes through the heads of men who do choose to harass women in the streets. Because of my relatively stable upper-middle class upbringing, I don't have any experience with any form of violence outside of what I've described or with the way class affects these interactions. I know to a lot of you, I sound like the poor little rich girl who is always whining about something while everyone else is able to deal, and more importantly, has to deal. I am not disabled, and also appear as a heterosexual gender-normative woman. Finally, I acknowledge that anyone can violate anyone else, and it is not just men to women (though that is the majority of my own experiences). These experiences are different for everyone, and what I speak from comes from my own limited, bourgy worldview.
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