what you can do

Street harassment, violence against women, and other forms of hate have become expected, even acceptable, realities of everyday life. Changing these realities is something only we can initiate and see through. Deviate social norms, relentlessly break your silence, cancel history and stop hatred:

"Spectatorship is all too comfortable for many individuals. In accepting hate and prejudice, whether actively or passively, the members of society are typically rewarded in both a psychological and material sense. By contrast, those relatively rare individuals who choose to violate norms of seperatism, respect diversity, and fight for the rights of exploited and victimized groups are likely to suffer loses of their own" (Levin 2002:79).

Breaking your silence and speaking out "means breaking through the cultural stereotypes and political propoganda to recognize that the members of a particular group are human beings who are worth saving" (Levin 2002:80).

People who break their silence and speak out against street harassment are "the rebels, the deviants, the incredibly decent and indepedently motivated people who, even under trying circumstances, simply (or not so simply) refused to follow the dictates of legitimate authority" (Levin 2002:91).

"Thus, if even one spectator decides to break away from the inertia of the masses and become a rebel, he or she might serve as a role model for many other bystanders to imitate" (Levin 2002:91).

a man just followed me home

i know i should let some more time pass before i write this...but, it has been a couple of hours so at least i will be able to restrain my strong desire to litter this post with four-letter profanities.

a man followed me home from the metro. and wouldn't take no for an answer.

like so many of my friends, i am absolutely overwhelmed with schoolwork--borderline nervous breakdown. but im trying to git 'ir done, to cope. the last week or so i've spent every waking moment when im not in class doing homework, often in the library. i stay until just before the metro closes so i can spend the tiredest part of my day commuting (thus maximizing my alert hours for quality study.)

well i won't be doing that anymore.

i was metro-ing home like usual, listening to my ipod and trying not to fall asleep. it was reasonably crowded, a typical tuesday night. i got off at my stop and after passing through the ticket-taker and approaching the stairs, the man behind me stopped to ask, "are you an actress?"

oh, COME ON!!! first of all, im wearing what i wore to class today (jeans, boots, and a long sleeve, full length baggy down jacket. ok, a different hair accessory from the norm but aren't i entitled to wear a damn hat if i want without getting FOLLOWED HOME??? i felt like what my friend described on her trip to egypt, wishing she had a veil just so she wouldnt feel so exposed and unsafe all the time) second of all, who says that?

i said no, pointed to my books and said im a student. the escalator ride up he kept talking to me so i entertained it--nothing wrong with some neighborly chit-chat. i didnt want to stereotype and assume the only reason a man talks to a woman is for sex. but at the top of the escalator after several more stomach-churning compliments thrown my way i started to panic---he better follow my lead and part ways.

instead he decided to walk in my direction, toward the absolutely deserted, unlit, silent abyss that is 11:30 pm Q street--to continue hitting on me. and with every "no" from me came a new "but" from him.

-can we get coffee/go to the park/go dancing/go drinking/hang out sometime? can i have your number? i'd like to get to know you better.
-no, but thank you. it's inappropriate/i feel uncomfortable/i have a partner and this is inappropriate altogether
-but i won't tell him.
-im just not comfortable.
-make up your mind, make a decision.
-i did, i said no.
-can i have your number?
-no.
-how can we see each other again? its harmless.

and this is the part i f**king hate. the part where i get bullied into using excuses out of fear for my safety to diffuse the situation and explain/justify my "no." using my boyfriend as protection was bad enough, but then i used the reality of my thesis taking up my whole world to justify why i have no time to make a new friend. and then i said something even worse, out of nervous fear.

i said, with my phone grasped readily in my hand in my pocket:

-maybe we'll just run into each other one day.
-how can we run into each other without phone numbers?
-(silence.)
-i was thinking of going to the zoo this weekend...
-you should, it's good.
-yea, because i was thinking of going like saturday...
-(silence.)

IT GETS WORSE on my part.

as we approach the corner of 18th and Q i think fast--didn't want him to know where i live--and said that was my apartment ahead of us and that im going home. really it's where my friend lives.

he insisted on hugging me and kissing my cheek goodbye. i was just too scared to cause a stir, and wanted to do whatever it took to get him to go away, to ride away on his bike. why, oh WHY did i even let it go two blocks...so many things i would have done differently but i just kept thinking, "When did No stop meaning No? How much more direct does one have to be?"

My gut is to think it's my fault, my cowtowing to his power dominance and my engagement in this situation...i think this stuff is what makes men like him think what he does is ok and makes women like me just lay down and take it. But it's NOT my fault. I've been raised by society to think of myself and expect others to treat me like a fragile egg on a spoon being carried by a man on a tightrope--there for the taking and extremely fragile. and silent.

ok, weird analogy.

but isnt it amazing, that this situation also encourages me (a) never to walk alone ever and (b) assume every man that talks to me is trying to hit on me, harrass me, or take advantage of me. Is that fair to me or to 'them'???? no.

gosh, i just wanted him to disappear, disappear into another neighborhood, another city--and to return to me my feeling of safety. i told the doorman of my friend's building to please let me in because i was being followed. he did, and so i went up to talk to my friend.

i thought about it. maybe i was overreacting, maybe he was harmless, and maybe im just easy to scare. or maybe this is a primary example of what we at This is Ladies Night hope to bring to light and STOP.

maybe it was culture-clash...he recently immigrated from jamaica, maybe women there say "no" to be coy.

I say "no" to mean "no."

i sat with megan for a long time, trying to chat away the shakiness. i scrounged quarters around her apartment so i could take a $5 cab for the four blocks from her place to my place. i told the cab driver why i was cabbing such a short distance and he waited for me to be inside my front gate before driving off (nice guy.) now it's 2 am, my whole plan for productivity tomorrow is set back because i'll inevitably be tired, and im seriously thinking ill never commute home at night again (unless with a group, of course.) BTW, he lives a block from me, but he doesn't know that, of course.

why is this our status quo?

why doesn't "no" mean "no"?

i was seriously frightened.