Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism (29 page)

 

In the years after my nine-month stay in the Dominican Republic, I climbed out of my pit of fear and entered into an angry stalemate with men on the street. I viewed the sexual abuse in the Dominican Republic as a more extreme expression of the verbal harassment I had become accustomed to on U.S. streets. The molestation was certainly more painful than catcalls, but the verbal and physical violations in the Dominican Republic and the United States both hinged on men’s relationship to women as objects for gratification.

After I left college and grew into womanhood, my old avoidance tactics became too cowardly for me to stomach. Rather than lying about my phone number or my relationship status, I learned to say “I’m not interested.” As a grown woman, I understood what I did not know as a teen: I am not bound to respond to men’s overtures. Accusations of meanness left me unmoved, I refused to engage in any unsolicited conversation. Freed of my adolescent compulsion to be kind to strangers, I enforced my own agenda with a stubborn willfulness. Rather than cross the street in avoidance, I would plow straight through groups of men, offering a loud “Good morning” or “Good evening” as I walked past. The men were often shocked into silence. By the time they got their game together, I had already passed them by. Despite my new protective tactics, the old rages still owned me. My behavior still consisted of premeditated defensive acts aimed at dismantling male aggression, and random men still had the power to ruin my day.

Four years after my return from the Dominican Republic, miniskirts were no longer part of my wardrobe and most of my warm weather tops were T-shirts rather than tank tops. With a suitcase full of modest clothing, I traveled to the city of Salvador in Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia. From the moment I arrived in Bahia, I was immersed in a culture that exuberantly embraces skin exposure. Rather than cover up their bodies in an attempt to avoid harassment, Brazilian women display an over-the-top sexiness. Many Brazilian girls and women dressed modestly, but I was amazed to see little girls trained in sexy dress from girlhood. In Bahia fatty flesh was displayed as proudly and blatantly as well-muscled limbs, and even pregnant women sported string bikinis.

After days of fruit and heat, I fell in step with the trend. Especially on beach days, I would wear thigh-bearing shorts and skirts and little triangular halter tops. On one such day I walked past a group of men, my bare legs uncovered, my braless breasts jiggling. Without being consciously aware of it, I was on the alert, waiting for some comment to trail after me as I passed. But I heard nothing; not one word, not even a whisper. Their silence rocked my world. In the quiet of the moment I caught myself thinking, “If I am dressed like this, how can they let me slip by without comment?” Through that renegade thought, I was shocked to discover some small dark corner of my heart where I was holding onto self-blame. My indoctrination of woman as victim had been more complete than I had imagined.

The Dogon, the ancient West African astronomists, philosophers and mystics, believe there are multiple levels of knowledge. For a concept to be fully integrated in the human psyche, it has to be learned, the Dogon say, from the front, from the side and from the back. From the front I understood that I was not responsible for men’s decision to harass me. It was an intellectual knowing that had no practical proof. From the side I had gathered quantifiable experiences in the Dominican Republic that destroyed any argument that clothing caused sexual harassment. Now, here I arrived to the back, to the heart of the matter. On the most profound level of knowing, I learned I could be a woman—covered or uncovered—and move through the world without censure. I felt the burden of being a desirable thing slipping from my fingers. The blame of causing chaos on the street and the shame of creating deviant behavior in men disappeared.

The slaughter I had unknowingly walked into in the Dominican Republic was being soothed by an equally unexpected gift. These Brazilian men—with their sexist presumption that I should walk around exposed—helped to free me of the expectation of abuse. The false responsibility I had been nursing for men’s behavior began to wash away. Even in the following days when a large group of boys yelled, “Hey, look, a girl all alone” during a street festival; even as the low whispers of gostoso (sexy, literally, “tasty”) fluttered by my ears as I wandered the streets of Bahia—I recognized street harassment as men’s drama, not mine. I acknowledged it as something I am forced to navigate but never again would I take the accountability, pain and anger home with me.

By the time my cousin came to visit months later, I had totally embraced the Brazilian style of dress. “You look cute,” she told me, her eyes taking in my bare skin with surprise. “I could never dress like that.” I told her about the men in the calm neighborhood of Santo Antonio, where I lived. Though I had heard tales of extreme harassment in neighborhoods further from the center of the city, I raved about the freedom I experienced on the streets near my home. In response, she grunted noncommittally, a sound that told me she believed my words, but the reality of it just could not sink into her body. Later at the house she went through my clothes. Looking at the pieces of cloth held together with strings, she said, “I would love to be able to wear this.” “Put it on, wear it, nobody’s gonna bother you,” I said. She thought about it for a second and shook her head, “No, that’s alright.” She put on a T-shirt instead.

Wandering through my Brazilian neighborhood that afternoon, we entered into a passionate conversation about something—family, art, love—and we strolled past a group of men. Though we were entrenched in a conversation, my cousin stopped abruptly and said “They didn’t say anything!” I could tell by the wonder and incredulity in her voice that she, too, had never imagined she could walk past a group of men and not be harassed. Her surprise at being granted freedom was a moment of painful validation. Her expectation of abuse was so immediate, so adamant, that it substantiated my historic anger about catcallers. Her reaction showed me that my fixation on the issue was neither exaggerated nor unwarranted. At the same time it was heartbreaking because it meant the force I had to muster up just to walk down the street is required not just of me as an individual but of a whole society of women. Suddenly I imagined legions of women futilely employing defensive motions to navigate the sexually hostile environment of their city’s streets. The next day my cousin wore that halter top.

 

Just as there are women who travel to the Dominican Republic unscathed, there are women who travel to Brazil and suffer extreme violations. There is no Shangri-la, no magic safe space to heal women’s wounds of harassment. As feminists, we need to approach catcalling from the front, from the side and from the back. It’s not enough to condemn men’s behavior—we must also heal our past hurts, remove our assumptions and create positive forms of interactions. As women, it is essential that we share our harassment stories with our children (male and female), our sisters, our brothers, our parents and our lovers. Our brothers are potential catcallers, our husbands may have molested girls as teenage boys, our daughters may need a context for the aggression they are forced to thwart in their public lives. Our stories are healing, they tell us that we are not alone. Our experiences are instructive, they point to options for managing the fear and diverting the aggression.

Today I can identify exactly what catcalling is and how it functions in women’s lives. At its most basic level catcalling is sexual harassment. Verbal assaults, invitations and compliments are opportunities for men to demonstrate who is predator and who is prey. One catcall yanks a woman out of the category of human being and places her firmly in the position of sexual object. While men readily admit to the assertive flirtatiousness of catcalling, they fail to acknowledge the veiled aggression that often accompanies the act. Depending on a woman’s response, catcalls can go from solicitous to angry. There is often a violent edge lurking under the surface causing women to question their safety. When a man screams (or whispers) something inappropriate to a woman, the harassment inserts itself into her consciousness whether she interacts with the catcaller or not. With intrusive overtures catcallers assume the right to engage a woman in a sexual fashion without her permission. This presumptuous crossing of intimate and sexual boundaries is a painful disempowering force. Relentless catcalls destroy women’s power to define their own parameters for public interaction. Rather than face the world on their terms, many women walk the streets burdened by anxiety, discomfort and fearfulness.

The reality of the situation is dire, yet since my return from Brazil, I have ceased to think of men as the enemy and myself as the victim. I prefer to think of the catcallers as individuals who choose to yell and rub their groins and aggressively pursue conversations with me. Male expectations and verbal aggression still anger me, but my mental stress is significantly diminished. Rather than try to block their ignorance, I float beyond it. I know now without a doubt that male aggression is not caused by me.

I am aware that men don’t consider the cumulative effect of unwelcome sexual comments. Instead, they focus on their individual moment of interaction, insisting that they were just being men. I take a similar attittude when dealing with them now. My response to catcalls are based on my feelings and the man’s attitude. If a man asks me my name, I might say “no,” refusing to enter the game. If he seems rational, I might reason with him. “Look,” I may say, “You had your choice of whether or not you wanted to talk to me. Shouldn’t I have a choice of whether or not I want to give you my number?” If I have the time, and they seem gentle enough, I might enter into a philosophical conversation. When I once refused to give a man my number, he asked, “Why you being so mean?” I said, “You don’t want me to give you my number just to be nice, do you? Don’t you want me to actually like you?” He thought about it, and said, “Yeah, I guess so.” I guess men get caught up in the game, too.

Just as often as women get caught up deflecting the attack, men get caught up pursuing the goal. An ideal interaction with a catcaller snaps him out of his gender-based assessment of me as an object and informs him that I am a human being. Sometimes with a few words, a man can be reminded that I am not that different from him. I too would like to choose who I interact with, sit in silence if I feel like it and make friends based on my interest not because of the force of their aggression. Should a feminist force rise to transform the streets into a safety zone, that force would need to reeducate men. It would need to teach them that every women is not a flirtation waiting to be fulfilled, a conversation waiting for an introduction, nor do we exist to respond to every invitation or overture. Women are individuals with desires, preferences, prejudices and pet peeves. And we want as much control over our own interactions as men demand for themselves.